"May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance." 2Thess.3:5

JUNE 2009

    Exploring the Desert

by Mark Lang

There have been several instances in my life where I felt like a desert floor: parched, cracked and desperate for rain. Many times the rain I have longed for is a revival; some sort of movement by God, some new revelation or show of power. Rarely have I appreciated those desert times for what they can be; even more seldom have I recognized how self-imposed my desert often is.

Of course, when I'm dying of dehydration in the midst of the desert, it is massively irritating to hear about the value in it; and it flat out makes me want to wretch when some pithy soul points out it might be my own making.

Unfortunately, it is all pride and on the rare occasions when I can get past the fear and anger, I am forced to admit the possible truth in these statements. I can look back and see God powerfully at work, precisely in the times I thought Him distant and impassive. The exchange of my pride for grace, in whatever degree, is always a miracle, and always seems to come in the brokenness of those supposedly barren places. Yet I can't see the miracle in the moment. I don't know what I thought pruning was supposed to be like; it was always a nice pious metaphor to throw around. Then it happened and it hurt, and I immediately started rebuking the devil. Funny how I imbue the devil with so much power in my life, just to have an easy scapegoat on constant standby.

However, what bothers me more than easy scapegoats, is the idea that many of these deserts may be my own making. There is a constant issue between me and God, and my calculated expectations and His unwillingness to fulfill them. I think it's just a hangover from my old self and the old way of thinking: namely, that I'm the center. I suppose I'd rarely have characterized things that way (it would've been taboo in my religious circles), but upon inspection of my actions and words, there is no doubt I believed it. In fact, I think I was taught it by Christian leaders who believed it too. And now when I fall into those old molds it manufactures a problem with God.

You see, I'm convinced I used to shape God in my own image. He was quite compliant and agreeable in those times. It worked like this: there were certain blockages preventing God from moving; thus we had to discern certain steps that needed to be accomplished in order to achieve breakthrough; then God would move in new powerful ways, sweeping people into the Kingdom and slaughtering the enemy. It was a wonderful system because even though we rarely saw God move in the forms we were expecting, there was always a reasonable answer; there were always new blockages someone was discerning and new steps we had to take. We were very much a mule following a carrot dangled in front of our nose, and happy to be that way.

But as God got more of a hold in my heart, that started to break down. Eventually I was confronted with a new revelation: I was not joining God in His work, I was inviting Him into mine. Previously I had not recognized the distinction between the two. Now I had a problem. My prefab expectations of what the Kingdom looked like, were falling apart. I had to face a difficult thought: maybe God was moving and I was missing it; maybe I was the problem, and not my various scapegoats.

This new thought inevitably led me to difficult admissions of my arrogant assumption. I had assumed God wasn't moving the way He wanted and intended to all along. I had assumed I/we could somehow remedy that. And I wondered what the cross had been for then? Was it really finished? What did that mean? Suddenly my assumptions seemed embarrassingly ridiculous in the eyes of hindsight. My arrogance came down on my head like a sack of cement.

As I recovered from my mortification, I began to ask a new question: God, can you show me what you're doing around me today? Could you help me to live rooted in your heart, rather than my expectations? It was amazing how fast my desert dried up and I began seeing God at work all around in the everyday. No, my old expectations of revival had not come to pass. But now, for the first time, instead of inviting God into my expectations, I was hearing his invitation for me to join Him in what He was doing. I realized how blinded I had been by my own assumptions and demands of Him. I was also haunted by two things: 1) my desert had indeed, at least in part, been self-imposed;
2) God had used the desert to accomplish more healing in my heart.

I'm not naive enough to think that I will never feel like I'm in the desert again. But hopefully I have learned that there can be great value in those times, and that more than likely it is a creation of my own brokenness. I think I'd like to look at those times as opportunities for God to take me further into His heart, rather than waste my energy discerning various scapegoats.

I guess to conclude, I would say that God is at work all around us each day, just as He desires and intends to be; we can either accept His invitation and join Him in that, or we can continue to demand He fit our vision of what His work and Kingdom look like. Besides, no matter how many miracles, healings and minirevivals I witnessed and took part in, none of it ever satisfied. There were always more breakthroughs we needed to make. Miracles and ecstatic experience are great, but they don't satisfy; only intimacy with Jesus does.

Mark Lang - www.rockcanada.org -------

Reproduced with permission. Mark is an author, teacher and a founding member of Solid Rock Youth and Family Foundation who work to communicate and equip individuals and groups with the Good News of Jesus in healthy life giving ways in Taber, Alberta. Canada.

   BLESSING

"May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and gave us, by his grace, encouragement eternal and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word."
(2 Thessalonians 2:16)

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