Alphabet of Love - W is for Wilderness

The voice of one crying in the wilderness... Matthew 3:3

Wilderness is the place where true love is tested.  

It’s the long, dusty road where walk becomes a crawl.  Where the emotion and excitement of the promise wanes into a feeble memory while the fulfillment is still far, too far off.

It’s the place where I also begin to see the discrepancy between who I am and who I am called to become. 

A place where I recognize even greater discrepancy between who I am and who is the One who called me.

Wilderness is a place where I need to distinguish whether I love my Beloved because of all the lavish gifts He bestows on me, or for His own sake?

Is God truly enough?

Does Job fear God for nothing? Job 1:9

Wilderness is a place of weeping.  

There is hunger there.  And thirst.  And disappointment, desolation, darkness and danger.

The place where the enemy worms his way in and sows the weeds of doubt, depression and despair…

If God really loved you He would never allow…and the Plan B is advertised on the backdrop of our mind as quite attractive option.

... Where the lines between Reality and illusion, Truth and deception are blurred beyond recognition...

Wilderness is a place of waiting.

Where I must learn to desist following my own way,

                                                 trusting in my own strength,

                                                                  insisting on my own timing. 

It’s the place of startling discovery that my way is not God’s way.

It’s the place where my endless Whos? And Whats? And Whys? And Whens? are

slowly,

softly, but

surely

silenced into an inexorable

Wait.

Wait?!!!

How long?

As long as it takes.

As long as it is necessary…

Until…

...this wretched wilderness is turned into a place of …

...hidden and overlooked treasures…

...unveiling of the breathtaking beauty…

Until you hear the whispers of the wind calling your name…

Until your soul is washed under the waterfall of living water

and you are made new.


Until we finally realize that it is

His love and

love alone

that led us here.

Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.” Matthew 11:2-6