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The Deserts of the Divine


There is something divine about the desert. There in golden sand and regal rocks a person encounters real trust in God. I believe there are two deserts, one is barren and full of dead earth, the other is the sea which is beautiful and full of dead water. It is these two places that man and woman is tested. There on either the sand or the sea, our souls either end up saved or shipwrecked.

The Wilderness or Wildness of the deserts and deep seas is where God meets those called out to follow Him. It was in the Wildness that Moses met God in Midian, at Mount Sinai. (Exodus 2"11-25, Acts 7:30). It was through the Red Sea, that Moses led the Israelites to the Land of God's Promise. (Exodus 14:21, Exodus 15:22). Moses was even saved from death by being sent via the Nile River by his Mother. Here in the great Prophet and teacher of the Law, we see a life shaped by the desert and seas, which are the hands and fingers of the Almighty.

In the Wilderness the Savior, Jesus Christ spent his time for forty days, fulfilling symbolically the forty years that Moses and Israelites wandered the Wilderness. Jesus in the desert was tested by the devil (Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:2) and resisted. It is from the Wild that our Lord came and began His Ministry that culminated at Calvary on the cross. Jesus also explored the desert of the sea of Galilee, there twice he faces storms with his Disciples, once in the ship asleep  and rising to rebuke the waves (Matthew 8:23-27) and the second time walking out on the water and calling to Peter to join him on that watery surface. There Peter failed because of unbelief and fear. (Matthew 14: 22-33).

The Seedless Land and the Sea are the threshing floors of our faith. There God strips us so that we may put our security in our Lord alone. Trust is tested there in the treacherous terrain and tempests. If we fear, we will fall and become dust or drown. But if we trust and have faith in Jesus Christ, we shall make it from the desert to a deeper relationship and reliance on our Lord and survive the storm.

Many want to avoid the journey through the desert or sailing across the deep sea. But if we do not venture into the Wilderness of the Dry and the Water, we shall not be baptized; we will miss the opportunity for the Lord to purge us of the poisons in our souls and come to a place of perfect trust and peace in Him. As Christians we should hunger for the Wildness and work towards getting to the desert and depths. There in the baked sun or the beating seas, we find Jesus. There in the arid country we find Christ teaching us to resist our flesh and the devil. There in the parched land we purge self and deny it as He commanded (Matthew 16:24). Then on the ocean we are in open battle, a battle of fear versus faith. The waves being every trial, traitor, tribulation, test, and terror.

The Desert and Deep Sea are divine because the Divine One waits us there to do that which will bring our selfish nature to complete dryness and death in the desert and a deeper relationship with Jesus in depths of the Sea of His Love and Trust. Remember that the desolate desert or the deep depths will not destroy you, but they will destroy the part of you that is self sufficient and relies on your own strength. There in the sand and sea our self is broken until it acknowledges that only the Savior is God and sufficient to save us.

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