A Lenten Message: Desert Fears, one person's experience

I think we al have a natural fear of the desert. There are a lot of unknowns in the desert. Extreme heat. Extreme cold. Wild creatures. Spiritual deserts can be just as scary as earthly deserts.

Images of a stark landscape and deep solitiude and loneliness come into play when we think of the desert. Painfully hot days and shiveringly cold nights. No food. No water. No sustenance. Not sure how you got there and not sure how you will get out, or if there every will be a way out.

Additionally there are times of temptations, all sorts of feelings such as anger, despair, depression, anxiety, confusion. You name it. One can feel it in the desert. The desert is to be avoided at all costs, right?  We'd much rather be on the spiritual mountaintops - dancing and conversing with Jesus, feeling all warm and loved. The warmth of the sun on our faces, feeling healthy and grounded. 

Sometimes however, the desert cannot be avoided. Sometimes we are plucked off our mountaintop and tossed headfirst into the desert and , just like the cartoons, we sit up and have stars swirling around our heads and we think "What the heck just happened?".  Where is Jesus? Where is the mountaintop?  What is this place?

I have been on mountaintops with Jesus. It is FANTASTIC!  I have also been in a few partifularly severe deserts during my spiritual life. The most recent desert, still fresh in my mind, is a desert I entered about two years ago.  I wasn't just plopped into the desert. It was more of a slow slide off the mountaintop and then, tripping somewhere along the way, I fell off of a cliff, sailed through the air at breakneck speed and landed with a very hard THUD, face first in the desert.  When I sat up, I had a mouth full of sand, no water, a headache, and was frightened beyond belief. Enter, desert fears.
That desert lasted many months. It was an incredibly hard journey.

I am thinking of desert fears now because it is the Lenten season. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert and for some reason the reality of that hit me hard this year. Jesus Himself, the Prince of Peace, could not escape the desert. In fact, he willingly walked right into it.  That just blows me away. He could have hung out on the mountain top forever, but He chose to walk into the desert. I didn't choose it. It was apparently given to me as a "gift", but I didn't know that until afterwards.

Just like Jesus' experience in the desert, there are reasons why we must walk through it.  There are benefits to the desert. I found that out the hard way.

I learned a lot from being in the desert. First of all I learned that it didn't kill me, although on some days I felt very dead.  I learned that intense and prolonged solitude can make a person stronger instead of weaker.  I learned that wisdom develops in the desert as a result of all the solitude and reflecting that goes on.  I learned that Jesus allows us to wander through deserts to get us to other destinations (spiritually speaking).  I learned most of all that the desert makes us into very different people than we were upon entering it.

BUT - and here's the clincher - the only way we can become different and leave feeling like a better person instead of a more angry and bitter person, is that we have to come to a point when we SURRENDER to the desert.  There comes a time when we can't do it anymore. We can't fight anymore. We have no more prayers. No more reflections. When we don't know what direction to walk in next and all seems lost...that is when things start to change. Because then, and only then, do we shout out to the Heavens "I GIVE UP! I HAVE NO ANSWERS. I AM LOST. JESUS SAVE ME!" and then we collapse into the sand. We lay there motionless for what seems an eternity. We are too weak to do anything. We look and feel dead through and through.

In essence, we sleep, we rest. We can do no more. We are near comatose, spiritually speaking. 

Then, slowly something starts to change within us. Not sure what it is, we pick our heads off of the ground. with the little bit of life we have left in us. We spit out the dirt in our mouths. The desert is silent except for a distant wind. It is night. The stars are out. We cannot stand, so we remain seated just looking up at the stars. It is in that moment that we realize how small we are. How invisible we are to all of humanity. Nobody will come looking for us, yet.......suddenly we feel we are being watched and there is a sense that we are not alone. God is there. Watching us. 

There comes a period of waiting. We cannot ask any more questions. We do not complain anymore. We can barely eek out the words:  "Ok, Jesus. I'm here. Lead me." We feel the breeze on our face and through our hair.  We watch. We listen. We are silent.  We hear out own heartbeat and our own breath. We feel intense hunger and thirst.

Slowly we are given what we need from above. I will not share with you what Jesus sent me because that is too personal to share in a blog ( one must have some discretion, you know ), but just know that I got what I needed. I rose, listened, and walked according to His voice and where He was leading me.

I had forgotten that deserts have oases. In my case, Jesus knew I needed a break. I had lived through enough and if I didn't get a break, I would not make it through the desert.  He provided for me a special place in the desert in which to seek refuge, to have some comfortable temperatures, and to feel some relief. In essence, I was in a place where I had time "to be".  To be in His presence. Saying nothing for I had no words.  I stayed there for quite a long time.  I started to feel very comfortable there - so much so that I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to have to venture back out into the desert, even if it meant that I would know a way out. It was too scary and I was quite weak.  The thought of going back "into society" was also a fear because I knew I'd be going back much different and wondered if I would be accepted ( which is always a fear of mine, desert or no desert ).

However, the day came when Jesus asked me to leave this oasis and start the journey out of the desert. I obeyed. Obedience is something else you learn in the desert by the way. One of the promises I received from Jesus was that I could always go back into my oasis whenever I wanted. Having that comfort, I felt strength to leave it.

Many months went by. The journey was long. Every step forward gave me more strength, more wisdom.  When I reached the end of the sandy desert I came upon a beach. It was empty. Jesus came, hugged me, and we walked for a long time, talking and enjoying each other's company. The desert had ended. THANK GOD.  But a new way of being had begun for me.

As I said before, when a person goes into the desert, they go in one way, and they come out much different. That is what happened to me. Oh, I know most of the people around me probably can't even see that I am different. But I know I am. I still get up every day. Go to work. Do the things I have to do. But inside my soul, I am a very very different person.

I guess one way to describe it is that of a clay pot being fired. It goes into the kiln as soft fragile clay and after being subject to 2000+ degree heat, it comes out a transformed pot, much more solid.  Now it can be painted beautiful colors and the next firing in the kiln will make it even more beautiful and useful. Does that image help you understand?

So yes, there are many things to fear about the desert. The pain is real. The process is real, although invisible. I share this with you to give you some words of  wisdom that I learned in the desert : if you find yourself in the desert, know that it will end some day. Remember to surrender. Remember to listen. When you are presented with an oasis, visit it.

Thanks for listening. Hope this helps.