But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. And they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel, chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men. For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord? The one whom he chooses he will bring near to him.
Do this: take censers, Korah and all his company; No one comes to the Father except through me. The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,.
For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.
For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, To the choirmaster. Of the Sons of Korah. According to Alamoth. A Song. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God. For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands.
He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.
And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle. All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt.
So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Maybe you came to depend on your own strength or stamina. Then God brings weakness into your life, so that you will learn that your strength is in Him.
You see it as deprivation. God sees it as preparation. In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness; and there Israel camped in front of the mountain. Exodus Did you see why God brought them to the wilderness? He brought them into the wilderness to bring them to Himself.
Why do you suppose that God brings you to Himself? I read again today about Jesus calling the disciples. He called unto Him the twelve. And why did He call them? Did He call them to Him to give them an assignment? But the preparation for that assignment came out of being with Him. He called the twelve to Himself, that they might be with Him and that He might send them forth to preach. Mark Part of the preparation for what God wants you to do will grow out of the revelation of Himself that He gives you.
For most of us, the only place we can be readied to receive that revelation is in some wilderness, where God separates us from what we have learned to lean on, in order that He can show us that we need to lean on Him alone.
Where are you right now? Do you feel alone there? Do you feel abandoned there? I know how you feel. I have been to the wilderness. I have lived in the wilderness. I felt alone. I felt discouraged. If you are in the wilderness, you might be angry at God. You may have considered abandoning God. In your discouragement, the wilderness can even become a place of sin. Where is God then? How will God respond to you when you have proved to yourself that you are not worthy of His love.
Sometimes God takes us to the wilderness not only to show us Himself—but to show us ourselves. The truth about who we are and how we trust God surfaces in the wilderness. There, we are proved to be worse sinners than we knew ourselves to be. How does God respond then? Consider this passage from Nehemiah. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good.
You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses. In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them. They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery.
But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take.
You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen.
Nehemiah Why do you suppose God takes you into the wilderness to show you yourself so that you can see what a sinner you are? God takes you to the wilderness and shows you what a sinner you are so that He can show you what a Savior He is! In spite of the rebellion of His people, He remained faithful. He still gave them water for their thirst.
He still gave them their daily bread. He still guided them on their journey. He never left them. Do you suppose God might also be carrying you? I am sure you have asked God some of the same questions that I ask from time to time. Can you still use me? Do you still love me? The very words I write were born in one of those moments in my life.
I will never forget the day I was in my office working on this message. I was preparing it for me, because I keenly felt everything I have shared with you. I had allowed a deadline to pass that seemed to me to be critical to my future.
I let it pass because I had no word from God. God responded when Moses and Hagar left their complicated situations behind, but what he really wanted was for them to give up lives that were worth something to them.
Once Moses and Hagar no longer wanted to be in the wilderness, the time was ripe for them to go, so they were driven to reenter. Making sacrifice is an important part of what it means to grow closer to God, but I maintain that it is a whole relationship, not sacrifice alone, that God pursues in the wilderness. Consistent with that, God characteristically waits until people are ready to give up, and then he comes to the rescue them. I propose that God wants to be loved for who he is, rather than what he gives us; with or without food, he is still the God of his chosen ones.
They give themselves no way out and, in the best of cases, they do not regret that, even at the point of death. Practical Suggestions Post-industrial society has contrived some counter-productive ways of thinking and living that can stifle the gains of a wilderness experience.
All forms of instant distraction can preclude time to reflect. This, in turn, allows for the deepest kind of trust, and feelings of security, and intimacy.
It is essential that we be aware of the challenges of our society, and the ways that we cleverly avoid the wilderness, in order that we do not miss out entirely such an experience. Entering the second experience of the wilderness is a place to decide whether or not to continue to follow it, trusting the Lord, even when the situation appears to be dire. All suffering, abuse, family conflicts, confusion, and other pains in this life can bring us into a spiritual if not physical wilderness where we encounter God.
Ultimately, this means that suffering has a purpose, and that a life in which there appears to be nothing but suffering can have the deepest meaning of all. Alleviating or avoiding pain is not wrong—as evidenced by the first entrance into the wilderness—but a life free of crises would never allow a decision to be made between God and the things he provides for us.
The questions about his trustworthiness, and what we are willing to leave behind in order to follow him, would never occur to someone who was not in pain. Without suffering, there is no freedom to love God entirely, to make a sacrifice for him. It is a crisis like the second entrance into the wilderness, which makes room for what is truly most important for human fulfillment.
For a little objectivity on the issue, I turn to the devil, who I think can be counted on both to perceive weaknesses, and to attempt to capitalize on them. Jesus was tired, hungry, and tempted to grasp for his destiny, to steal it ahead of the appointed time.
We know that it took energy to resist these temptations because angels came to minister to Jesus afterwards. Still, there are some things about his inner life that must be the case, in order for this scene to make sense. Judy Cassidy and Phillip R.
Shaver New York: Guilford Press, , I have chosen to work with this school of thought within psychology because I found it to be the most fruitful choice in collaboration with the wilderness stories. As a contrasting example, behavioral psychology instructs that one should immediately reward and punish behaviors; it further instructs that the best reinforcement is random positive reinforcement for desirable behavior.
In the wilderness stories, we see God waiting until the last minute to answer prayers, and he always not sporadically answers them eventually.
Behavioral psychology serves to help us understand why the Israelites failed so frequently, but beyond that, it can only illustrate that God is not primarily concerned with programming our behaviors. It does not help us much to posit what he is attempting to do in the wilderness. They must remember the unprecedented and miraculous help of Yahweh during the Exodus and in the wilderness. They must remember the stubborn rebellion of an intractable people.
He tested her so that she might find out what was in her heart. There is both enlightenment and danger here. This is the way God chose to appear during his proclamation that he would save his chosen people. Donald E. We are not to forget on whom we depend for the fruitful harvest, but rather, we are called to offer up the first tenth of it in worship. She regularly reviews books for Humanum Review and CatholicFiction. I am humbled by the beauty and the light of truth you have shed upon the purpose of suffering, Juliana.
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