GodSprings - 19 November, 2016

                     

How am I in the Wilderness?

They spoke against God, saying, “Can God spread a table in the wilderness?” 

Psalm 78:19

Victor was a Swiss scientist. Having experienced personal tragedy, he sought to address his pain by engrossing himself in an experiment—turning a lifeless object into a living being.

Scouring graveyards and funeral homes, Victor gathered all of the parts and pieces he needed to put together a massive creature that he chose to name after himself: Frankenstein. But the living being he created quickly turned into a monster.

Most of us have seen the movie, but do you know the real tragedy of the story? The monster, after he had been transformed from a lifeless collection of parts into a living being, turned on the very person who created him. In his independence, he turned against his creator, transforming him into a victim.

We as Christians are not ten feet tall and don’t walk around with bolts or dismembered body parts sewn together, but the truth of the film resonates in many lives.

Even though we were dead in our trespasses and God gave us life, creating something in us where there was previously nothing, many of God’s children have turned on their Creator. Rather than live for Him, remember what he has done in our lives, we choose to live for ourselves – our own wants, desires, emotions, and will. As a result, lives disintegrate, and what had been created for something good quickly devolves into a debacle. This is what happens whenever we forget what God has done.

In order to make it to the Promised Land, we’ve got to leave Egypt. It would have been easier for the Jews if upon crossing the Red Sea, they had stepped directly into Canaan. But that’s not how God usually works. We all have to go through some “desert time” to get from where we were to where God wants us to be. That “desert time” is like being “between trapezes.”

But having left, they discovered that the wilderness was a tough place to live. They were “between trapezes,” in that frightening place where you have let go of the past but the future has not yet arrived. You let go because you have to, but then you wait, hanging in space, hoping and praying that the other trapeze arrives in time. In that desperate place, it’s easy to doubt that God knows what you are going through.

Life isn’t about your dreams, your agenda, your hopes, your ideas, or your plans. Life is all about God’s dreams, God’s agenda, God’s ideas, and God’s plans. It’s his kingdom we’re praying to come, not ours. Can God set a table in the wilderness? Yes, He can. He does. He will. And I assure you, you can count on it.