From Wilderness to Garden

Done with the wilderness, already. 

                     I want to be in a garden.

I am beginning to sense relief...  but it has been miserable!

I kept thinking if I could just figure out WHY I am here, I could FIX IT and get OUT!

I have been reading the scriptures about people who are in a wilderness season.  The reasons vary—and the people I am reading about didn’t always know why they were there.

The Israelites were in the desert for 40 years because of grumbling and disobedience.

                                This is not good news for me. 

Actually, that wilderness experience was God’s plan:  Here was Moses’ message…
              "Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness."

                                Great.

Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

                                Again, not good news.

Jacob was thrown into a pit in the wilderness by his brothers.

                                So, the there is a PIT in the wilderness?
                                                       Can we get lower than that??

The lover in the Song of Solomon came out of the wilderness  ‘leaning on her Beloved’.   

Song of Sol 8 : 5

                                I pick this one.

The sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness.  Exodus 17: 1

I can tell you what does NOT make the wilderness experience pass by any faster:

1.              Whining

2.              Begging

3.              Pouting

4.              Being harder on myself

5.              Isolating (even further!)

My 'wilderness' did not look like this.

 

What HAS helped me is this:

1.               Clinging—to what my spirit knows is true.

2.               Praying—and learning to rest, not strive.

3.               Trusting—in the good nature of God; not the fears of my imagination

4.               Reaching—to a good listener who will help me process in my search for understanding

5.               Responding and Repenting—when convicted of sin, but not sifting and ‘beating myself’

The wilderness. 

I’ve always thought of it as a desert.

Webster’s dictionary offers several definitions for ‘wilderness’;

one of them is “a part of a garden devoted to wild growth”.

Isaiah 51:3

The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.

Isaiah 58:11

The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

To go from wilderness to garden makes me happy.

After all, this all started and ended in a garden.

From Eden. 

Then the Garden of Gesthamene. 

Then…

John 19:41

At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.

           Resurrection Sunday is coming…