God Can Refresh Us Even in the Wilderness
Have you ever considered that the God who created the garden also created the wilderness? That the God who created the glorious fragrant rose also created its thorns?
World renown missionary, Amy Carmichael, once said, “Bare heights of loneliness … a wilderness whose burning winds sweep over glowing sands, what are they to HIM? Even there He can refresh us, even there He can renew us.”
Perhaps Jesus knew the same.
“[Jesus], Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.” ~ Luke 5:16
Jesus chose the wilderness as a place of solitude, whereas I tend to run away from this difficult place. To me, the wilderness represents difficulty, trial, desolation, and barren dry places.
But Jesus chose the wilderness.
Maybe because He knew the One in whom He believed and trusted in His steadfast love.
I can imagine Jesus in the wilderness, sitting beneath the boughs of an acacia tree hidden in the shadows that linger even in the noonday sun. He presses His back against the bark, rough with desert dryness, and raises His head, opens His eyes to behold the heavens and consider His Father.
His gaze must pass through the multitude of thorns protruding from each branch. The significance does not go unnoticed – the thorns representing sin and the curse of a fallen world.
Jesus closes His eyes and listens. Come to Me, My Son. Come and let me ease Your burden.
A boulder juts from the barren earth a few feet away. Jesus heeds the voice of His Father. I can envision Him kneeling against the hard surface, hands clasped, head bowed. Perhaps a tear escapes and flows effortlessly down His cheeks of flesh while He asks for strength … while He prays for us.
How beautiful to know He prays for us!
In the Wilderness Jesus Found Peace
But the point is that Jesus prayed often in the wilderness. He found rest there. Solitude. Reverence. And peace.
Jesus did not find torment or failure or fear — those things we equate with our wilderness experiences.
He found His Father.
Our Father waits for us in our wilderness also. No matter what we face, He remains.
Will you heed His call?
SELAH
