WILDERNESS
1st Kings 19: 1-9
Hebrews 12: 1-3
What comes to your mind when you hear the word “wilderness”? What images does this word conjure? Perhaps those images could be described as isolate—cut off from the rest of the world. Perhaps those images could be described as overgrown with vegetation and other things. Perhaps those images could be described as uninhabited or uninhabitable. With whatever images come to mind, I’m guessing that they are of a physical place. The wilderness is most often thought of as a place: it exists, it can be pointed out on a map.
However, the wilderness can be more than a physical place.
The wilderness can be an emotional place. It can be a place where we feel utterly alone with and in our thoughts and feelings. Even though we could be surrounded by those who know and love us, we can still feel isolated from those around us. It can be a place where we feel as if no one knows or cares how we feel—either they cannot, because they have not experienced what we have experienced, or because they choose not to know or care.
It can leave us screaming, with no one to hear to us.
The wilderness can also be a spiritual place. There are times when we can feel as if we are cut off from God. In these times we search and search but it seems as if God is nowhere to be found. Not only can we feel disconnected from God, but we can feel cut off from our church family. I wonder how people have sat in church, looked at those with whom they worshipping and thought, “if they only knew…” They’ve given the appearance of faithfulness and such, but they feel empty and worship seems meaningless. In this spiritual wilderness,
we so often feel as if our souls are dry, cracked, parched, or overgrown with all the stuff of life.
Am I striking a chord? Does this sound familiar to anyone? Can any of you recognize what I’m talking about? To use the words of Bishop Gregory Palmer, “am I in the house?” If so, let me say that you are not alone. My guess is that each person has gone through, and some are going through, a wilderness place in their life. The wilderness can be a lonely place where we feel we are all by ourselves. It can be a scary place where we wonder if we are ever going to get out of it. It can be a place of frustration where we scream, “how did I let myself get here?!” The big question for us then becomes,
“what do we do when we find ourselves in the wilderness of life?”
Elijah is a biblical character that is all-too familiar with the wilderness. For most of his life, he has felt isolated from everyone else; mainly because of his calling to be a prophet in the service of God. Elijah is familiar with the physical wilderness, the emotional wilderness, and the spiritual wilderness. Yet from the account of his fleeing from Jezebel, we find perhaps the best advice in dealing with the wilderness—he acknowledges and claims it. He tells God that he’s in a bad way. He even asks God to just let him die. It is this brutal honesty that is so striking and a word of grace
for us—claim and acknowledge your wilderness before God, before others, and before yourself.
Honesty compels us to admit that all of us go through tough times—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, etc. Admittedly, some of us go through tougher times than others. Not to scare anyone, but if you haven’t gone through a really rough time, just wait—my guess is that you will before all is said and done. Denying the reality of these difficult times only serve to, more often than not, drive us further and further into the wilderness. Denying the wilderness keeps us in the wilderness. And so, the best word is honesty. Admit the wilderness.
Admit when we are going through a tough time and find ourselves in a place of isolation.
I know you are thinking, “easier said than done, pastor”. You are right. It is much easier to talk about being honest than actually being honest, especially when it comes to our own personal struggles. Why is that? Why do we struggle with admitting we are going through a rough stretch? Perhaps we are afraid we are going to drag everybody else down with us. Perhaps we tell ourselves that it’s not really a big deal and we tell ourselves and others something along the lines of “I’ll be fine”, or “it’s not that bad”.
Perhaps we are afraid of being judged as weak or incompetent. Whatever our fears, they keep us from fully owning those feelings and experiences we have. There is something intensely spiritual with being honest with God, others, and ourselves. It puts us in a place of knowing and being known,
in a place to receive the care and compassion of God and others, a place of self-acceptance and peace.
A second key in navigating the wilderness is going to sound very trite. It is not going to surprise you, hearing it from a pastor. This key is simply turning to God. There are those times when turning to God is all we can do. There are times when there is absolutely nothing we can do for ourselves and absolutely nothing anybody else can do for us. However, there is nothing that God can’t do. When we are in that wilderness, the best we could do just might be turning to God and
allowing God to nourish and sustain us for awhile.
This turning to God can take more than one form though. It could be an inward turning to God. This inward turning to God is done through engaging and embracing the Scriptures, focusing our prayer life, or engaging in other personal activities that bring us closer to God. At the same time, our turning could be an outward turning. We could turn toward God by embracing those around us who are also going through a wilderness time.
It is amazing at how God uses us to help soothe and heal each other!
The overarching theme of these sermons during the weeks of Lent is “Bread in the Wilderness”. It is a reminder that even though we go through tough times and we find ourselves in the wilderness of life, there is nourishment from God along the way. God never leaves us and, even though the wilderness is lonely and scary, God is there with us. Remember that verse from Psalm 23? “Even though…you are with me”.
God is with us in our time of wandering the wilderness. Thanks be to God!
AMEN.
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