The God of the Desert Places - Part 2

During David’s first time in the desert, he became very familiar with the wooden staff that shepherds used. No doubt you have seen one in every nativity. It is a wooden stick with a crook on the end. It had many purposes for the shepherd. It was used to count and number the sheep as they entered their makeshift pens each night. The crook was used as a tool to rescue animals from thickets and crevices. It was also used as a tool to direct the sheep where to go, push them forward or pull along stragglers. The rod perhaps refers to the bottom portion of the staff. It would have been used to drive away dogs or wild animals. An interesting aspect of the rod is one of chastisement. It has been said that during ancient times, shepherds would use the rod to break the legs of consistently wayward sheep. They would then carry that lamb on their shoulders until the breaks healed. By the time the sheep was healed, it was bonded with the shepherd and would stay close to Him afterward.

Knowing God’s rescuing staff is ready to scoop me from the dark crevices of the rocks I fall into, making sure I am counted in the fold every night or to helping me when I straggle is definitely comforting to me. It is easy to see how the staff would have been a comfort to David too, but perhaps he also learned to appreciate the rod of God during those desert times of his life. David could have left the rod out of his description of comfort. We could argue that the defensive aspects of the rod are comforting and that the rod was meant to protect us not harm us. However, the offensive use of the rod is almost disconcerting. Would God really cripple us to draw us closer to Him? Isn’t that forcing Himself on us and overriding our free will?

I can say from experience that my time in the desert in no way over rode my free will. I had been skirting around the desert for years, wandering in and out of desert territory. I was already partially to blame for my desert excursions. Growing up, there were a lot of childhood issues that sent me reeling in the wrong direction. These childhood issues and unrefined personality challenges kept me directionless for much of my life. The issues were obvious to those around me, but as they say, “I couldn’t see the forest for the trees” or maybe more appropriately, “I couldn’t see the desert for the sand”. Secondly, although I had been raised in a Christian home, many “good directions” in the Bible just hadn’t sunk in. I unconsciously excluded verses I had read in scripture as things that didn’t really apply to “today’s world” or “just weren’t possible”. By doing this, it sent me wandering on my own path trying to find the Promised Land. Then along the way, bad things happened and I allowed these “bandits” to divert me from the path I needed to take. So I wandered, a little because I had bad directions, a little because I was not listening to good directions I had been given and a little because I allowed bandits to deflect me from the path. In other words, God might have made the desert, but just like the children of Israel, I chosen to go and then stay there.

I wonder why I was so discouraged when my desert time came and believe me it did come. I was often so much like the children of Israel during my desert wanderings. God performed miracle after miracle in my life and then when the next hard time came, I quickly forget the mana and water of yesterday. I complained that I was eating the same food over and over. I questioned God’s love for me. I bitterly ranted about how God had left me in the wilderness too long. I yelled about how long I was expected to live like this and wondered if God had forgotten me. Sometimes, I would wallow in the pit where God found me, unable to move away from its edge for fear of the unknown desert ahead. I wondered whether it would have been better if God had just left me in my pit to die.

Then God in his mercy and grace provided for me again and I was content for a brief while. Just as quickly, I realized that even though He did perform a miracle, I was still in the “desert” of all places. I wondered when it would finally be over and God would allow me into the land He promised me. Where was this peace that passes understanding, joy of the Lord, easy-yoked, abundant life He spoke of in the Bible? I certainly wasn’t living that kind of Christian life. I can say all this with confidence because I lived in the desert for most of my adult life. Even though I knew God loved me, I treated the God of the desert like an impotent, careless, mean god and just like the Israelites I only truly worshiped and believed Him when I saw huge demonstrations of His power. Until, one day, like the Israelites, God grew tired of performing “dog and pony” shows for me and just let me stay in the desert a while. When I finally gave up complete control of my life and died to myself, God finally led me to the Promised Land. So when I say that the God of the Promised Land is no less god than the God of the desert places, I can do so with a little bit of experience under my belt. I had been a permanent desert resident and I have the deliverance to prove it.

My experiences with God’s offensive use of the rod during my desert experience proved to me that His rod is comforting and that I appreciate God’s correction. Any expert in child rearing will tell you that a disciplined child is a loved and happy child. Not only have I seen this in the lives of my own children as I have disciplined them, but I have seen it in my own life as God disciplined me. My desert experiences were excruciatingly painful and I would not wish them on anyone. Without the rod of God during my desert wanderings, I would still be a miserable, complaining, unfaithful, fickle, useless child in desperate need of discipline. I look on my own time in the desert and thank God for loving me enough to keep me there until I learned to hear what He was trying to teach me. It was His rod and His presence in the desert times that drew me closer to Him and proved that I was His child, a child that He would not, under any circumstances, allow to wander alone into dangerous territory, but would also not allow to leave until I had learned to stay close to Him.

Now that I have known the God of the desert, He is more real and powerful to me than ever. After experiencing the God of the desert, I truly appreciate the God of the valley. I love his daily manna, the still waters, green pastures, feasts and the delights He has for me in His presence and in His house. He led me out of the desert by his mighty right hand, restored my soul because he pulled me from the crevice, the miry clay and set me on the rock of His salvation. His yoke is so much easier, his burden so much lighter, the life He gives is abundant, He is joy and His peace is beyond my understanding.

If you are going through a desert time or even revisiting a desert place you thought long gone, might I suggest that you learn to stay close to God. Draw near to Him and follow Him wherever He leads. Only He can lead you out of the desert to the green pastures and still waters. While you are in the desert you can still rejoice in the Lord. Praise Him that He loves you enough to chastise you. Rejoice when you find yourself broken because God is working in your life, that He has a plan to prosper you and that He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it. He will not leave you in the desert unless you chose to stay there. Find comfort in the staff that rescues and learn from the rod that corrects. Take in all that God has for you to learn there. Learn it well so that you won’t need a longer stay, a return visit or forbidden to enter the lush, abundant, joyful life in the land He has promised just for you, His precious chosen one.