There are times in our walks that everything seems to be going just fine. We are at ease, our minds at peace. Than there are other times. Times when it is all we can do to force ourselves into His Word or find the time to pray. These are the dry times. The times when we find ourselves in a parched and barren wasteland. We cry out, “I am so thirsty!” yet still, nothing seems to satisfy. We read. We look. But all the things we search for, even when and if we do find them they are still not enough.
Why does God allow this, these times when we find ourselves in the middle of a desert? Here it seems even God is absent and perhaps He is. Will we still trust Him? Will we still believe? Will we still continue to trudge along, yet still so thirsty? Or, will we abandon? Will we turn our attentions? “It is nothing but a mirage,” the Lord says and for a moment we think, yes, we hear Him! “But it looks like a place I can rest, Lord, with pools of water.” And again, “it is only a mirage,” He says.
Will we listen when we are in the middle of a wasteland? Did the Children of Israel when God led them round and round the wilderness for forty years? Did they listen when they were lost? Or did they turn their attentions? Building golden cows to save them?
There is always a reason for the wasteland. Perhaps when it is we find ourselves there that we find what we are really made of. Will we still turn to God? Will we still pledge our allegiance to Him and Him alone? Or, will we like the Children of Israel build our golden cows, allowing nothing but a mirage to snare our wayward hearts and drag us elsewhere?
If you are in the middle of a wasteland, hold on. Keep your eyes and heart steadfast on Him and He alone will lead you out.
