Mercy in the Wilderness

Have you ever felt like you are completely lost? Like someone dropped you into the middle of the wilderness and you're all alone? Like the world around you threatens to consume you?

Maybe it's a difficult marriage or an unreasonable boss. Perhaps it's a damaged relationship with a close friend. Maybe you've been wounded by those you were supposed to be able to trust.

In recent years, I've wandered through my own wilderness. I've experienced the agony that accompanies broken relationships and the pain that comes when you discover that the very people you believed would be there to carry you in your time of need have turned away. I've experienced the loss of nearly everything that was dear to me and a loss of everything I thought I could depend on - EXCEPT GOD.

Throughout those years (yes, I said years...it takes a long time to find your way out of the wilderness -  just look at the Israelites), I kept being drawn back to Psalm 136:16...

to him who led his people through the wilderness;
His love endures forever.

 Wait a minute...to him who LED his people through the wilderness? Did you catch that? It doesn't say to him who FOUND his people in the wilderness, or to him who RESCUED his people from the wilderness, it says to him who LED THEM THROUGH! What a reassuring thought! I wasn't lost out there waiting for him to find me...he knew right where I was. This wilderness experience wasn't a surprise to him. He would lead me through it.

So I dove headfirst into the word of God and determined to discover whatever lessons He had for me along the way. I looked at the Israelites and their journey through the wilderness to the Promised Land. It took 40 years for the Israelites to make what should have been an 11 day journey. Why did it take so long? Because God was teaching them and they had ALOT to learn!

• The Israelites had a faith/trust problem.

These were people who had been in bondage to Pharoah with no hope of escape. People who were freed from their slavery by the Lord. People who had witnessed the 12 plagues that the Lord wrought upon Pharoah & Egypt. People who had witnessed the Lord guiding them with a pillar of cloud leading them by day and a pillar of fire leading them by night. People who had seen God part the Red Sea so they could cross on dry land. People who celebrated when the same Red Sea consumed Pharoah's armies. People who had witnessed God change bitter water to pure water for them to drink.

Yet, within the first few months of their freedom, they are longingly looking back at their old life and wishing for their familiar provisions. Exodus 16:1-3...

...on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. ² In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. ³ The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

After all that the Lord had done for them, they still figured they would die in the wilderness due to lack of provision. As I read that, I marvel at how dull they truly were, but then, I look inward and discover that I am no different. Even though I have witnessed God's hand mightily in my life, in the middle of my crisis, I begin to wonder if God is abandoning me and doubt His ability to provide for my circumstance.

• They had an obedience problem

A few months into the journey, the Lord calls Moses up on the mountain to receive instructions for the people. The people witnessed the Lord consuming Mt Sinai with smoke and the mountain trembling and the voice of God answering Moses. (If you ask me, this would be sufficient evidence to do whatever God wants them to do!). Yet while Moses is up on the mountain with God for forty days receiving instructions, they are quickly led astray and are melting down their jewelry to make idols and bowing down to worship the things that they have made. Exodus 32: 1-8...

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

² Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” ³ So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. ⁴ He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

⁵ When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” ⁶ So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

⁷ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. ⁸ They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

Think about that...forty days after receiving instructions directly from God, they get a "better" idea and run off and do their own thing! My first thought is, what a bunch of idiots! But then, when I look inward I find that many times I do the same thing. I know what God wants me to do, yet somehow, I find myself doing my own thing.

• They were rebellious

The people were once again grumbling and complaining to Moses about their circumstances when the Lord specifically instructed them on how they were to proceed  into the promised land and who was going to enter it. Numbers 14:20-25...

²⁰ The Lord replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked. ²¹ Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the whole earth, ²² not one of those who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times— ²³ not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. ²⁴ But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it. ²⁵ Since the Amalekites and the Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea.”

Rather than accept the Lord's instruction and obey what He had commanded, they decided to take matters into their own hands and enter the Promised Land on their terms in their own way which ultimately ended up in their destruction. Numbers 14: 39-45

³⁹ When Moses reported this to all the Israelites, they mourned bitterly. ⁴⁰ Early the next morning they set out for the highest point in the hill country, saying, “Now we are ready to go up to the land the Lord promised. Surely we have sinned!”

⁴¹ But Moses said, “Why are you disobeying the Lord’s command? This will not succeed! ⁴² Do not go up, because the Lord is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies, ⁴³ for the Amalekites and the Canaanites will face you there. Because you have turned away from the Lord, he will not be with you and you will fall by the sword.”

⁴⁴ Nevertheless, in their presumption they went up toward the highest point in the hill country, though neither Moses nor the ark of the Lord’s covenant moved from the camp. ⁴⁵ Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and attacked them and beat them down all the way to Hormah.

Again, I'm thinking...you dummies...you had the instruction right from God, yet you still headed your own direction thinking that you knew better? How dull can you be?  Then, I look at my own life and see that I have the word of God right in front of me (the Bible), yet, I try to do things my way. I know what God says, but I think that I have a better plan.

I wonder, what would have happened if the Lord would have taken the Israelites out of the desert miraculously? What if rather than leading them through that wilderness, He would have just promptly placed them in the Promised Land? I have a feeling that things would have been pretty bad. You see, sometimes we have to walk through difficulties rather than be delivered from them for our own benefit. We have to suffer a little so that we can grow. We have to be broken down so that we can be made new again.

Through my own wilderness experience, I came across a song by Steve Camp that I listened to continually. The words of the song ministered to me as I nursed the wounds that life had delivered. Each time I heard the lyrics, my mind was bouncing between the parallels of my journey and that of the Israelites and I asked myself, "What is the Lord showing me?" and I reminded myself that no matter where I am, God is present and there indeed is Mercy in the Wilderness.

MERCY IN THE WILDERNESS



Every day that I walk with You

You break me down and You make me new

Though my faith is tried, this I know is true

There is mercy in the wilderness

Through the valley deep and the mountain high

You have been my strength and Your Word my guide

I have known Your grace through the tears I've cried

There is mercy in the wilderness

In the barren place where the hard winds blow

Oh my flesh cries out, "Lord refresh my soul!"

Oh the Lord is kind

And the Lord is good

He is faithful to His children

Through the fire and flood

He has with me stood

He gives mercy in the wilderness

Oh the chastening of the Father's hand

Yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness

Though our hope is born in sorrow there'll be joy at last

There is mercy in the wilderness

So I thank You Lord for my every trial

The Father's love confirms me as His child