“We don’t make mistakes, we just make happy accidents.”
~ Bob Ross
Ever have one of those days? Or weeks? Or let’s face it years?
Your turn the calendar page to a fresh month, fresh year, filled with excitement and expectation. Goals set. Dreams journaled. Plan made. And then nothing goes as planned. A missed alarm creates a missed workout. A missed appointment leads to a missed opportunity. A mistaken turn winds you down a winding road to an off track and off road journey to nowhere you intended to wind up.
I have found myself in the middle of nowhere, both literally, figuratively, and spiritually. In the spiritual sense, we label these seasons or stretches of life as deserts. Even as I type that word my fingers want to lead me astray to extra “s” and an extra 600 calories. Yet, I digress. Deserts are physically dry, arid places. They have limited life sustaining sources. Water is tough to come by.
Now take your worst moments of desert days and multiply them by 14,600. That is the number of days Israel spent walking, wandering, camping caught between prison and promise. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. For 40 years, while one generation passed, another waited their time. For 40 years, a people waited, patiently and impatiently for the season to shift. This couldn’t have been the plan.
In a moment of absolute honesty, there have been days in my life where I asked God a stupid and probably dangerous question, “do you really know what you are doing?” That frustrated ask mostly comes from a place of disappointment and discouragement because in my mind “it was not supposed to go this way.”
See we all live with a narrative of how we think thing will go. We have a script that is already written. All the dialogue is spelled out, all the blocking for the scenes prepared. Then life sets in and the players in this scene fail to act their part. Suddenly, life looks nothing like what we planned.
Admittedly, I have walked this dusty path and in some sense still do. By now, I thought I would be pastoring a church. By now, I thought this blog would be huge success. By now, I thought the podcast I host would have taken off. By now, I thought my kids would know the Lord better. By now…all scripts I wrote.
As with many moments in days that feel dry, God leads me to his word. It is hard to rest in the Word of God being a light unto my feet and lamp unto my path when it feels darkest. Yet, like most other times and seasons, if I read, study, and rest, I find he is there speaking. The other day, the Lord lead me back to a familiar passage – Psalm 27.
The psalmist pens a pushing back of fear and a confidence that the Lord will turn back his enemies. Then finishes the piece of poetry with these words:
“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”
Psalms 27:13-14 NIV
Even in deserts, there are things living. If that is where you are currently walking, then count yourself alive. His promises to us, and me, is that the goodness of the Lord will still be seen. We are just in a season of waiting.
I am trying not to write the script on his goodness or his timing. I am working to wait and believe. I am fighting hard to rest and be renewed. I am holding tight to this promise: deserts do not last forever, he still has promises for me.
I am not sure what your desert is or how long you have walked there. This I know: deserts do not last forever. He still has promises for you.
To quote my favorite Veggietales – “just keep walking.”
