The Wilderness: Some Observations From There

The Wilderness is...

Being set aside.
Being alone with God.
Being refined / changed.
Reliance on God is all you have for resources.
Wildernesses are not fruitful lands, lands of plenty,
places of provision of themselves.
But you are with The One Who IS your Provider.
Therefore, manna falls from Heaven to feed you.

Nothing wears out, everything lasts, including you.
You live in the wilderness on God's provision, which takes
over the natural and
moves beyond the limits of the natural,
and if you appreciate HIM
the wilderness becomes a place of resting
from your natural efforts...

Difficulty, crisis, a loss of any kind or all kinds,
uncontrollable circumstances,
utmost difficulty that you cannot see your way through,
all may produce a wilderness.
Especially when this happens right after a God-meeting,
such as accepting Jesus as your Savior,
or coming into a place of honoring Him more deeply,
but some momentous spiritual happening
that makes you free.
And this momentous happening separates you from
what was before, what you were in, where you were
spiritually
and even naturally such as location.

The old testament is examples written in type and shadow.
The new testament is the type and shadow in the light,
revealed to us.
What walking with God was all about for the children of Israel
is now what is described in the new testament,
of the Lord God meeting with us on the heart-level,
and changing us.

So the wilderness brings us into a communion with God
that was not there before.
The alone-ness of being with Him and
mostly not being understood by anyone.
Except for perhaps those who have also, are also in their
wildernesses.

Some observances of mine because I've been in my wilderness
for awhile now...

1. God is with me.
And everything that He is, all of WHO He is
is here
with me.
It's personal. Very personal.

2. My expectations are not gripping on anything.
This is an adventure, or it will be torture.
So I might as well give in to not knowing what's next.
Total dependency is necessary for me to walk with God
both in this
and into my future.
Which He knows and I do not know.

It gets better as we go...

"Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
They make it a spring;
The rain also covers it with pools,
They go from strength to strength..." Psalm 84:5-7

3. This wilderness was prepared for me.
It has my name on it.
I was called here by God.
Nobody can take me out of it,
not even me.
And the Lord Himself knows the way in it and through it.
(He is The Way...)

4. We will come out.
"Who is this that comes out from the wilderness
leaning upon her beloved?..." (Song of Solomon 8:5)

5. The manna falls to feed me.
Heavenly food falls on my life. I recognize it.
I hear the voice of my Beloved and I
eat what He serves me.
I stop questioning about everything.

6. Therefore, my heart rests in Him.
The inner rhythms of stress and strain cease.
The agitation of my soul stops.
I am acutely being attuned to another heartbeat,
another song,
another beating of a calling ...
A beat that calls me to step
step and dance
rejoice and nearly swim
in my wilderness.
It's quiet here except for the song I hear.
And I may respond to it any way I please,
because my response pleases the Lord.
He wants me to hear and 
respond.

7. He is perfection.
Completion.
My Shalom.
He is our peace, our shalom. (Ephesians 2:14a)
He is all I need.
There is no lack with Him.
Life is abundant in my wilderness,
because The Life is with me
and He handles everything I need
and I am caught up in
what He speaks
and what He means by what He speaks.

8. I am being changed.
My heart is not the same in His presence.
He has got to me.
My yielding to Him gives Him freedom to be
Himself
with me.
And hopefully, through my life.
What isn't needed is being, has been removed.
My hope is in Him for who I am,
my eyes are on Him more and more,
my proof of my changing is not measured by people,
but by Him.
He is my judge, that is,
the One Who vindicates,
speaks for me,
lives in me.
I am His vessel, His habitation,
with great hope that He fulfills all the purposes He has for me,
as He would like
in me.

Canaan is the land of fruitfulness I look forward to,
just as Jesus set His eyes on the glory
and gave His last for me.
I give all I am to Him, as He asks for it.
My heart wants to hold nothing back and
where it does,
I can see it clearly where it does this,
I have Jesus my advocate,
Jesus my intercessor,
Jesus my merciful Lord,
to save me
from me.

Eat more manna;
Eat more of the Tree of Life...
Wait on God more...
Keep letting Him in more...

Some musings...


Joshua 5:1-12 Tells us about how the children of Israel
left the wilderness, after 40 years.
And after many died and a new generation grew up,
eating manna,
and being in a place where relying on God was normal
and the only way to live.
What a culture!! What a culture to grow up in!!
That's so great...

So it was ... that the children of Israel were once again
led to cross the Jordan and enter into the land promised to them,
that there is a record of the reaction of the nations around them.
Nations they haven't met yet, speaking of the new generation,
and maybe none of them met ever, because they were living in Egypt
their whole lives prior to the exodus and the wilderness.

Verse 1 -
"So it was, when all the kings of the Amorites,
who were on the west side of the Jordan,
and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea,
hearrrrd that the Lord
had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children
of Israel until we had crossed over,
that their heart melted;
and there was no spirit in them any longer
because of the children of Israel."   (Extra "r's" in the word "heard" added by me.)

The record proceeds to tell us about how the Lord spoke to Joshua to then lead the men to be circumcised, because the generation who had been growing up in the wilderness had not yet been.

Again, the new testament is the old testament revealed,
that is, the truths of the old testament are made known in the new,
so we can plainly understand what God was doing.
"We are the circumcision" Paul states in Philipians 3:3,
"who worship God in the Spirit
and have no confidence in the flesh."
This he said as a circumcised Jewish man.

It is the spiritual things of God,
the movements of God that are beyond the natural mind
and control,
but that are in keeping with His promises,
these spiritual things separate us,
make us utterly different from those around us,
and set us apart.
Apart unto God.

We become the circumcision of God when we are born of
the Spirit.
John 3 describes that being re-born is spiritual, not natural.
It is an experience, not a state of mind.
It is a state of being brought about by God affecting us,
in respect of where we are and where God is,
but not in the natural.
It is not God is my livingroom and I am in my livingroom.
It is not God is in a building and I am in the same building.
It is instead --
God has brought me to another place in my awareness
of Him
and has touched my heart,
my emotions and my phsyche,
the place in myself where I search and reach
--for the truth of any matter
and in there He has made it plain for me to know
that I know
that I belong to Him
and have been forgiven
because of ONLY what JESUS has done
FOR ME.
NOTHING I did for me has brought me here.
I am aware that I am new,
inside.
I am no longer what I used to be.
And now God is using the Bible - a book I didn't understand before
to tell me what is happening inside me.
So He has my heart,
And I have freely given Him my heart.

I am different.
My life is not governed by what is outside me,
but by Who is
inside me.
I am born of another nature, and it is not my own.
And I am aware that this is a new beginning, not everything at once.
This is pretty descriptive of being born again...
And there is more...
Be assurred.
This is good and right and this has it's place at the start...

But for those who have been in wilderness experiences
who need to hear some of the more,
Because - The birthing of us by God's salvation
is really the the first crossing of the Jordan - into the wilderness -
Let me move to the understanding
the second crossing --
after the training of their hearts and minds in the wilderness,
after the years of living on His manna,
and after the NEW was birthed (a new generation of faith, and in us this is the new life that God births in us and through us that is entirely of His life -
Yes, there is a fruitfulness in the wilderness ...)

The hearts of this first generation of people were changed in the wildreness,
and "the new" had to be birthed
and be joined in cohesion with the first,
and also be set aside as different...

May I say too, God cuts us where we live.
He separates between
what we have
from what He wants for Himself --
takes away a piece of us
that is part of where we truly live.
Ouch.
Not a sweet thing we would like to do twice.
And it was on the man's sensitivity, personal and highly important to him - area (may I be so bold)
--ahem--
Because man was created first to come into the things of God
first.
He was created to be the one who experienced God,
who responded to God,
as an example in love
and in servitude,
to show the woman love ...
to lead in love...
The real deal.
His love is to be sacrificial and different, like Jesus'.

(Yes, I know Adam was not circumcised in the garden.
But His heart was responding to God before God created
the one he needed to complete him, woman.
So the first Adam was already set apart, in a garden,
living unto God.
And there God completed him with what He created
as part of him... (more truths lead to more truths...)
And yes, Adam wrecked all that by his choice.
Read up on the first Adam and the second Adam in the NT
to understand this.
Again, the new testament is the revealed truths.)

But we are circumcised by God from and out of the world around us,
and we are ALSO circumcised "in heart".

The circumcised part of us is not the part tossed away --
but it is the part of us that remains.
WE ARE the circumcision.
Our hearts are cut.
The Word of God is a two-edged sword
which cuts...
"For the word of God is
living
and powerful,
and sharper than any two edged sword,
piercing even to the division
of soul
and spirit,
and of joints
and marrow,
and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents
OF THE HEART."

And Who IS the Word of God?
(It's getting really real now, isn't it?)
(John 1)

So we have the "new" now also separated unto God,
Walking in all that the first has walked in.
Ten or more insights just in this unity, including the
corporate Body of Christ and what this means...

But here is what happens next...
Verse 8
"So it was,
when they had finished circumcising all the people,
that they stayed in their places in the camp
till they were healed."

Back to those who are in their wildernesses and
hoping to come out soon
into fruitfulness and good things God has in store for you,
and laid up in store WITHIN YOU
all this time
eating all the manna He provided
enjoying His ways
learning His ways
living with Him and in His presence... IN Him...
The "new" gets to be circumcised.
There is obediance that must be in us
to let God take from us
whatever He sees fitting of the "new",
and then He lets us heal right where we are.

So we have it -
No rushing out of the wilderness, but a leading
and a miraculous provision of God
seen and understood by others around us,
--surely our enemies (not people)
(another sermon)--
and
the first thing after this crossing over is
circumcision,
the taking away by God of what He sees fit
to take away,
and how He takes it,
in our obediance and submission to
His way.

First things first, according to His ways.

I wonder what kind of love the new generation had
for the Lord, knowing Him in the wilderness as they did,
just as the new growth in us has such love for the Lord.
What is birthed in us in the wilderness is really REALLY
His. Not ours.
Yet, He circumcises it.
Kind of a tithe. Kind of a mark.
It isn't like the rest of the world's ways.
We are very different. VERY. DIFFERENT.
:)

Back to the Word...
Verse 9
"Then the Lord said to Joshua,
"This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you." "
The Hebrew word translated as "reproach"
means,
"disgrace, contempt, scorn, insult"

Next, in verses 10-12 we find the people then celebrated
Passover.
And they kept the feast "on the plains of Jericho".
This is also the first city God supernaturally demolished and
gave them this land.
Here they were, celebrating the Passover on it's land.
Significant.

And -
"And they ate of the fruit of the produce of the land
on the day after the Passover,
unleavened bread
and
parched grain
on the very same day."

Verse 12 -
"Then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten
the produce of the land;
and the children of Israel no longer had manna,
but they ate the food of the land of Canaan that year."

Let's go back to verse 1 and remember that God brought
His chosen people out of their wilderness
before the world
and with an audience of kings
all around,
who,
after a few generations,
had probably reduced the stories of the Exodus of this people
out of Egypt
and all the miracles of their being rescued from Egypt,
shaming the tyrant ruler
and being pushed out of Egypt by the people of Egypt,
so that the plagues would end, etc...
with gold and precious things...
All of this had probably been reduced to folklore.

God can separate us so very long that we are more like
an old rumor once heard in the ears of those who cannot
walk with us anymore.
Or God can allow the memory of what we once were to become
only a shadow of our former selves.
He can really really cause our reputation to disappear.
These people were not heard from for 40 years.
That's a couple generations and thensome.
Grandfathers and Grandmothers may have known of them
from long ago, by the time they surfaced back onto the world's
playing field...

Do not be ashamed of your wilderness.
Remember it is God who directed you there.
You are not greater than your Master, Jesus.
He was confirmed openly at His baptism by John,
that His Father WAS His Father
and He IS the Father's Son,
and that Father WAS (IS) pleased with Jesus,
and then
the Holy Spirit
drove Him
into the wilderness. (Mark 1:11,12)
HIS wilderness.
For the purposes of The Father
to be brought to fruition and fullness
IN Him.
Jesus learned by the things He suffered,
meaning
the things He was brought into submission by that were
God's will
for His life,
for the purposes of His life,
and His subservience was His choice
not a demand put upon Him...
This altogether means He already did what He is leading us to do,
submit to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit knows the mind of the Father for us.
(1 Corinthians 2:10b :
"For the Spirit searches all things, yes the deep things
of God.")
Jesus is the bread of Life - manna - The Bread of Heaven.
"Give us this day our daily bread," we pray as we were taught to
by Jesus.

Only in the wilderness can you subsist on, live entirely
on Manna.
(This is good! Right?)
Manna from Heaven feeding you.
A wilderness of being alone with Jesus,
Who already went throught the wilderness
and knows the way.
Learning God's ways straight from His heart,
Jesus is God's heart
(In the midst of the throne)
the heartbeat of God, the heart of our Father expressed to us,
the One Who Is God -- If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father...

Do you see Jesus?
Do you see Him in your wilderness?
Are you being satisfied with the manna from Heaven?
Or are you still trying to find the exit?
Will you yield and repent
and let Him have you completely?
Will you get down on your knees and worship Him?
And thank Him for this wonderful wilderness in which
YOU have the priviledge to know His ways?
And HIS heart?
And give up yourself and BE
Who the Father is making you to be?
Are you taking in the mystery of godliness, the processing
of His handiwork in you?
Are you letting go of Egypt?
Are you getting ready for Canaan?

An entire group of readied people stepped onto the plains of
Jericho and celebrated
The Passover
on a foreign field
but a fruitful land.
They ate freely of it, along with unleavened bread,
after recognizing the plan of God
to save them through their Messiah,
for the Passover Lamb is Jesus.
They celebrated Jesus.
They celebrated being set apart.
They celebrated Egypt's reproach being taken from them
in the Passover.
They understood that they were not like the people's around them.
And they knew the other kings saw them and
God showed Joshua that the kings' hearts MELTED.
Who would fight these people
when an entire river ONCE AGAIN rolled back and
rolled out a red carpet (oh yeah, the wine is the blood)
for them --
right to their front door??

Dig it?
The wilderness is FOR US
not against us.
Submission is a loving place.
Jesus loved His Father so much, that He submitted to
the Holy Spirit
and gave up the natural life He had,
just like we have,
He gave it up and submitted to the ways of God
as the Holy Spirit directed.
This is more than our ideas. Our intellect cannot handle this.
But if we yield to God,
we can find His rest
in His heart for us.
The Holy Spirit is making His heart known to us.
Preparation is an excellent thing.
"For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land alloted to the righteous..."
Psalm 125:3, "Lest the righteous reach out their hands to do iniquity."
We must be changed.
We must.
We must be different.
We have to be.
We must be readied for our calling.
Trained to carry the King into the lands beyond.

May we respond according to the Holy Spirit
and not miss what we are called to.

Amen.






All scripture quotations here are taken from the New King James
Version of the Bible. If any scriptures were quoted in part and not referenced and you need me to supply the reference, please contact me. 
Also please note: I am trying to not over-edit in order to allow the Holy Spirit to use what comes to me, as it comes to me, as my respect for what He gives needs to remain in harmony with as He gives it. But I do not claim it is complete, for I know in part, of course. 
All comments and thoughts in harmony are welcomed, of course.