A Drink in the Desert

Have you ever been alone with God?
REALLY been alone with God.
No music. No message.
Just you and Him.

“When they were alone, He expounded all things to His disciples.” Mark 4:34

“Our solitude with Him. Jesus does not take us alone and expound things to us all the time; He expounds things to us as we can understand them…God is making us spell out our own souls. It is slow work, so slow that it takes God all time and eternity to make a man and woman after His own purpose. The only way we can be of use to God is to let Him take us through the crooks and crannies of our own characters. It is astounding how ignorant we are about ourselves. We do not know envy when we see it, or laziness, or pride. Jesus reveals to us all that this body has been harbouring before His grace began to work. How many of us have learned to look in with courage?

We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves…The only One Who understands us is God…Wherever there is any element of pride or of conceit, Jesus cannot expound a thing. He will take us through the disappointment of a wounded pride of intellect, through disappointment of heart. He will reveal inordinate affections—things over which we never thought He would have to get us alone…”

-Oswald Chamber, My Utmost for His Highest, Jan 12

And this is the beginning of the healing process.

Most of us, however, don’t think we harbor hurt of pain—and many times, it’s just simply not time to deal with it. But when the time comes and the Lord gets serious, don’t blow Him off.

You see—healing is a PROCESS. Those things you thought were dealt with may come back in full force when there is more dealing to be done. Oftentimes, God uses situations and the people around us to resurface things. When this happens, we have the tendency to pull away…or if you’re like me it’s more like a tendency to full out run away. This action is justified by “needing to spend time with the Lord” or “just walking through a desert time”—when really, we’re just scared to walk through something we don’t understand or that hurts…or we’re simply too ignorant to understand that “walking in faith” doesn’t mean that all of our problems disappear when we pray.

Walking in faith is just that—a walk. Not a moment.

Trust me—when the Lord wants you in a desert, He will take you—kicking and screaming He will take you. You don’t have to create a desert yourself.

Chances are, those who surface these things in your life—whether it be past pains and hurts and experiences or unforgiveness, anger, pride, jealousy, gossip—are there for a reason. So don’t push them away, and don’t worry. The desert will come in time.

Don’t run from healing—as uncomfortable a process as it is. Run to it with full force—with false courage if you have to—because it is only through healing that we can forget those things which are behind us…and it is in the unknown that God has full reign…

Let your healing be like a drink of cool water in the desert.

It may sting because it’s been so long…

But what comes after is a beautiful thing…

May it turn you into an oasis for others going through their own deserts.

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil 3:13-14