Change in the wilderness
A baby camel asks her mother ''Mom, why have we got these huge three-toed feet?'' The mother replies, ''To enable us to trek across the soft sand of the desert without sinking.'' ''And why have we got these long, heavy eyelashes?'' ''To keep the sand out of our eyes on the trips through the desert,'' replies the mother camel.
“And Mom, why have we got these big humps on our backs?” The mother, now a little impatient with the boy replies, “They are there to help us store fat for our long treks across the desert, so we can go without water for long periods.” “OK, I get it!” says the baby camel, “We have huge feet to stop us sinking, long eyelashes to keep the sand from our eyes and humps to store water. Then, Mom, why the heck are we here in the zoo?”.
Modern life sometimes makes one feel like a camel in a zoo. And, like camels in a zoo, we need sometimes to go into the desert in order to discover who we truly are.
It was in the desert that the Lord made a covenant with his people and they discovered the power of God, they received the promises of God, they received direction, their faith was tested, it was there they were confirmed as a Holy Nation and discovered their strengths and weakness. It was there that many of them repented and returned to the Lord.
The Prophet Hosea says, “Therefore, I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her,” Hosea 2:14.
If you have an important message to convey to someone, what is the best means of getting the message through? Have you ever tried to talk with someone who was so busy you could not get him to hear you? Distractions prevent us from giving our undivided attention to the messenger. So too, God has His way of taking us aside to get our undivided attention. For Paul, it was Arabia for three years; for Moses, it was 40 years in the desert; for Joseph, it was 13 years in Egypt; for David, it was many years of fleeing from King Saul.
A great spiritual writer wrote: God knows the stubborn human heart. He knows that if He is to accomplish His deepest work, He must take us into the desert in order to give us the privilege to be used in His Kingdom. In the desert God changes us and removes things that hinder us. He forces us to draw deep upon His grace. The desert is only a season in our life. When He has accomplished what He wants in our lives in the desert, He will bring us out. He has given us a mission to fulfill that can only be fulfilled after we have spent adequate time in preparation in the desert.
Fear not the desert, for it is here you will hear God's voice like never before. It is here you become His bride. It is here you will have the idols of your life removed. It is here you begin to experience the reality of a living God like never before. Someone once said, "God uses enlarged trials to produce enlarged saints so He can put them in enlarged places!"
How many voices do we hear from the moment we get up in the morning till the moment we go to sleep at night? The countless voices in the daily paper, the soliciting voices on the radio and the television, the voices of those who live and work with us, not forgetting our own unceasing inner voices.
In the desert, we leave most of these voices behind to focus on distinguishing between the guiding voice of God and the tempting voice of evil forces.
Choose silent moments a day.
