Wilderness (Easter - Day 14)

(Based on Luke 4:1-13)

About eight years ago, I went with a group of friends on a backpacking trip to the Continental Divide. I was at a point in my life where I was experiencing a wilderness in my own soul. My drinking was taking a toll on my mind, and my relationship with God seemed apathetic at best. Before we departed on the hike, we all sat in a circle with our packs, and our guides asked the question, What are you afraid of? I remember answering that I was afraid God would tell me something to do that I didn't want to do.

It was a beautiful trip. We didn't spend as much time hiking as we spent making spears to catch river trout and standing naked on the top of cliffs. Traditionally on these trips, there would be one night to spend solo in the wild. On this night, we all picked a secluded spot and set up our mini camps. It was under the stars of the Colorado sky, silent, and pitch black.

My friend Derek was camping out a few hundred yards away, and I decided to make my way over to his spot. He was building a shelter of wood and grass, so I thought I would give him a hand.

Once we completed the shelter, we sat down and opened the scriptures. Up to this point, we had never spent much time reading the Bible, but we thought it was fitting. There's not a better place to read than out in the wilderness of Colorado, a mile high. We turned to the end of Luke, in which Jesus gave the "Great Commission" to his disciples. We read it over and over, hoping for a light bulb to turn on. And, it did.

Moved by what we were reading, we made a decision right then that we would save up the next year to "go somewhere" and "do something." That was it. A year later, after hard conversations with family members and a stack of support letters sent out to friends, we were headed to Costa Rica to "do something."

The wilderness has always been a setting that is steeped in meaning for me. It's unknown, scary, and enlightening all at the same time. In Luke chapter 3, we're told that the spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness for forty days and nights to be "tested by the devil." I think it's interesting that the spirit leads him into the wild.

There are two kinds of wilderness - the wilderness of the soul, and the physical wilderness. I believe the spirit inside of us knows when we need to learn something new, or review where we're at, or re-connect with the source of power that we've been disconnected with for awhile. It makes all the difference in the world if we acknowledge that the wilderness time in our lives is supposed to happen, and is meant to happen. The times in the wild for me have been filled with isolation, fear, and problems in my life that are overwhelmingly difficult. There have been times when I haven't acknowledged that I was being led, so it was a time of random, meaningless chaos. But, in the times I believed there was purpose, I found chaos matched with serenity and pain matched with healing.

In the poetry about the dialogue between Jesus and the devil, we find three significant things that happen in the wilderness. The first is, the hunger. The devil tells Jesus to "turn the stones to bread" so he can satisfy his hunger, but he refuses and says that real life is found from more than bread alone. Then, the devil displays all the kingdoms of the world, and tell Jesus that they can all be his if he worships him. Jesus again refuses, saying "worship only the Lord your God, and worship with absolute single-heartedness." The third test involves the devil taking Jesus to Jerusalem and setting him on top of the temple. The devil tells him to jump, reminding him that God has placed angels in his care to take care of him and keep him from harm. Jesus refuses again, saying "don't dare tempt the Lord your God."

In the times that I've experienced the wilderness of the soul, there is this part of me that wants to "turn the stones to bread," or to find a quick fix, a solution to my problems that will get the job done as efficiently as possible. In these times of brutal agony, I'm faced with a decision: I can trust the God I can't see, or I can trust what I can see. What I can't see is actually the sustenance that will get me through, but the alcohol or pornography or desire to control manifests itself physically and will give me a fleeting fix to my ailments. When I refuse what I can touch to make me feel better, I find a solution through the prayers to a God whom I don't understand nor see. I experience a satisfied "hunger." My desires to fix the problem are replaced with desires to see what the problem really is and what I can learn from it.

The other test I experience in the wilderness of the soul is powerlessness. When I'm hungry, fearful, and lost, I experience a devastating weakness that puts me at the bottom of the bottom. I'm without power. Jesus refuses the right to gain the power of dominance, or kingship. In the same way, there is a voice in the time of wilderness that invites me to build up a kingdom of control and dominance. It is the natural reaction to the sense of powerlessness. In the wilderness, the reality is that things are completely out of my control. I can't control the situation any more than Jesus can "have all this if you bow down to me." Trying to build up power within myself to regain a sense of control is like using a hammer to get rid of a headache. The thought that "maybe if . . ." revolves around my head, implanting new strategies to figure it out. Yet, the more I try to figure out how to control the situation and get powerful again, the worse I hurt myself. It's in the bitter, terrorizing moments of the acknowledgement of powerlessness that I connect to the source of power that will get me through. It's a power that is apart from me, but at the same time soars through my veins with the energy of a rushing waterfall. It's pure power, not manipulated or formulated by my selfish desires to be in control.

The last test I experience in the wilderness of my own soul is the temptation to throw myself off the "temple" of organized religion. The wilderness is full of questions for me. As I mill through the questions, pictures of people and churches and failures and hypocrisy and past hurts rummage through my mind. I gather ammunition from my thoughts and prepare to remove myself from anyone religious or spiritual or Christian altogether. I get so fed up with a religion that isn't going the way I want it to go, with a people who claim one thing but do another, with the black-and-white "theosophy" pours from the mouth of priests in an effort to "save more souls" and "get more folks to heaven." The devil tells Jesus to jump because after all, he has "the care of angels placed by God to take care of him." Jesus again refuses, and says, "Don't dare tempt the Lord your God." Jesus knows the trouble he will find in the temple. He knows the antagonism, the unbelief, the murderous plots, yet he stands firm at the head and chooses not to jump off. It's in the final test, the test of avoidance, that the rubber meets the road for me. It seems like sticking with a Christianity that seems lost and irrelevant and dying is the best thing to do, but there is prejudice there. My prejudice misses the forest because of the ugliness I see. When I realize that my prejudice is thick with apprehension and condescension, I back down. I find once again the point of it all. I find once again a beauty in the lostness, a vitality in the messiness.

The wilderness is a time of death and resurrection. Whether it's the loss of a loved one, a depression that stifles our senses, a bitter divorce or the fears of new marriage, a drinking problem that just won't go away, unemployment that will not right itself, or a sense of being disconnected from the God who loves us and has forgiven us and sees us as perfect creations, there will be death and then life. The wilderness brings new dimensions to our stories that we can share with the world once we step through the last bunch of trees and see the city lights down below - the reminder that the wilderness is not the only story. Death has truly lost its sting, but still has its time and place.

For those of us who are experiencing the wilderness of the soul right now, may we hold on as tightly as we can to trust in the God we can't see. May we refuse the right to build ourselves up as kings, trying to force square pegs in round holes only to find more pain and misfortune, and connect to the source of pure power that stands firm in the face of threat and manipulation. May we come to realize our own prejudices, and refuse to let them drive us out of our communities, our belief systems, and our religions. May we come to believe in a God who loves us too much to not let us in on his trustworthiness, power, and leadership.