grace is found in the wilderness

Those words leapt off the page at me yesterday.  They’re found in the words God spoke to the prophet Jeremiah, regarding Israel.  The whole passage can be read here, and there’s an awful lot to process in what the Lord tells Jeremiah.  Israel was headed for disaster, brought on because they refused to hear God’s voice and obey him.  They insisted on following their own plans, their own hearts, and the path they chose took them through exile, slavery, and ruin.  But God had a promise that outran their willful disobedience.

I’m working my way through a study of the phrase “in the wilderness” in the Bible.  I don’t know what the Lord is trying to teach me, but I know that something within me rises up at the thought of wilderness.  I keep coming back to the idea that I need wilderness in my life.  I have always loved the outdoors.

My love affair with the wilderness might have started as a kid, playing in the woods and rocks behind our trailer in North Carolina.  I remember walking through my Paw Paw’s woods, looking for arrowheads, him whitling whistles for me and my brother out of green sticks.  Somewhere along 7th grade I joined the Boy Scouts.  Even though I didn’t stick with it very long (baseball called) there was a definite connection.  Overnight campouts, a 70-mile canoe trip, learning the various skills required to “survive” in the wilderness–they all spoke to me.

I’ve written about this before, I know.  For a while, I was “outside guy;”  now I’m “guy with lots of outside gear.”  Oh, I get out from time to time.  I teach a kayaking class for newbies every spring.  My kids are all fledgling spelunkers.  Sadie says she wants to do some more climbing.  But I can’t help wonder if there’s something more, something I’m missing…

The Lord keeps bringing the call of the wilderness back to my mind and heart.  It shows up in various, unlooked for places.  I’m not sure how to process it, but it’s there–undeniable.  So I’m going to keep praying and studying.  What is it about the wilderness that the Lord wants to teach me?  Why is the pull there?  is it a distraction, or a design by God?  I’ve got to wrestle this thing to the ground…