Trusting God when everything is going wrong

Sometimes in life, we find ourselves living on the backside of the desert. Frustrated, angry and feeling confused about prayer, faith and trusting God. It may be influenced by a prolonged period of spiritual dryness, long term illness, or depression. Many people find career downsizing and unemployment to feel like they have been thrust into a dry desert pilgrimage, with no hope in sight to regain financial stability. 

We may not even know why the desert is there in our lives, but the series of set-backs begin to create a domino syndrome as problem after problem tumbles through your life. We may find ourselves blaming everyone and everything, even God. However, desert pilgrimages may be permitted by God as a means to deepen our spiritual lives, not punish us for past sins.

David experienced seasons of wandering out in a desert wilderness with nothing going right, and no end in sight. On one occasion he was being pursued by his son Absalom.While on his way back to Jerusalem, he had to pass through the dry, desolate Valley of Baca. A bitter cruel land with little resources to sustain him, and with his strength ever weakening. It was here that he wrote Psalm 84. It was written to be played on the Lyre as a song of worship in this Quiet Place.

David discovered  4 principles in the desert that he reflects  upon in this psalm:

The Desert Creates a Thirst for God

When resources  are gone and there is no where else to turn, we finally turn to God. David was no where near Jerusalem, yet in his heart and mind it was as if he were. He reflected,

"How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God." Psalm 84: 1-2

He was thirsty...yearning to be in the presence of God.  The desert experience, should so arouse our soul, that we become parched and yearn to bask in God's presence.

  

"My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?"  Psalm 42:2

The Desert Restores a Desire to Praise God

When we are in the desert, it is so tempting to blame God. Strained finances, ruined reputations, loss of employment, hopes and dreams, can be devastating. Deep within our hearts we can muse that God could do something about it, but He hasn't.The desert is a lonely place, but the heart can begin to praise God while we cry out in a hushed whisper,

"O Lord Almighty, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you. Selah:"

Psalm 84:4

"That my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever." Psalm 30:12

The Desert Reminds us to Depend upon God

In the desert the first thing we do is try to muscle,  bargain, or bribe our way out of tough circumstances. God desires to be our strength and our primary resource in the desert. He wants our heart to depend upon Him, to rely on Him, and trust that He will provide all the strength we need. 

When the desert becomes a pilgrimage to deepen our experience of God. rather than a means to get through a tough time, we will begin to change from the inside out. 

"Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion." Psalm 84:5-7

The Desert Awakens the Heart to Worship God

"Hear my prayer, O Lord God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob.  Selah Look upon our shield ,O God; look with favor on your anointed one. Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.  For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. (Beloved) O Lord Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you." Psalm 84: 8-13

When you find yourself in the Desert

Acknowledge  your need to have God identify any areas that may be minimizing your thirst for spiritual renewal, and personal spiritual revival.

"For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, and they have hewn for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns which cannot hold water." Jeremiah 2:13 Amplified Bible (AMP) 

Only Jesus Christ can fill the spirit of a person who believes in Him, and opens their life to His Lordship.

"Now on the final and most important day of the Feast, Jesus stood, and He cried in a loud voice, If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink! He who believes in Me [who cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me] as the Scripture has said, From his innermost being shall flow [continuously] springs and rivers of living water." John 7:37-38 

Begin praising God for your desert and begin to  rediscover a renewed dependency upon Him.

"In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. "1 Thessalonians 5:18
 
Recognize that depending upon God for all things brings glory to Him, and deepens your faith.

"But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19

 
Your desert pilgrimage just may be the best thing that ever happened to you.

   

Take a few moments and reflect upon the encouraging and inspiring words to this song by Matt Redman called "Ever Faithful."

 

Tough Faith for Hard Times

The deserts of our lives are not pleasant pilgrimages that we journey through at leisure. Most often when we think of a desert, we think of a place that is inhospitable, harsh and fraught with hardship, and the potential of danger. A desert exists geologically as a place where nothing useful grows to sustain life. A few animals can survive there, but for humans, it is a place to avoid, not head toward.

Personal Life Deserts are harsh emotional wastelands, void of vital resources when needed, and have the capacity to break our spirit. In Scripture, many times, the use of the word desert, wilderness, wasteland or dry land is interchangeable. Deserts are places that you travel through, when you have no other way to get to where you need to be. Deserts are real, and they are, tough places to traverse. In a symbolical sense, they illustrate those hard, seemingly unprofitable times when our lives are stymied, on hold, or we are spiritually as dry as a mummy’s breath. 

As a shepherd and soldier, David spent a lot of time in the dry wildernesses of Judah. He often found the need to flee to the desert during times of threat and personal crisis. When he served under King Saul and was suspicious of treachery, David fled to where he had the best chance to find a hiding place. 

In the Desert of Ziph

“David stayed in the desert strongholds and in the hills of the Desert of Ziph. Day after day Saul searched for him, but God did not give David into his hands.” 1 Samuel 23:14

In the Desert Of Edom

On one of David’s many forays into the wilderness, he was being pursued by his son Absalom, and his life was in peril. David went into the desert to find a safe haven, and discovered that amidst the turmoil, hardship and deprivation, his longing for God became an intense and insatiable reality. Deserts have a way of separating us from our natural comforts, and they strip us of the barest of life’s essentials.

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”  Psalm 42:2 
 

In the desert, God can speak to us in ways that He can in no other place. Be it under a mound of unresolved problems, painful discouraging long term health issues, a broken marriage, years of depression, or seasons of dissatisfying spiritual dryness, the desert creates a pilgrimage process, that has but one purpose: to lead us into a deeper life with God.

The Desert Creates a Thirst for God

After days of wandering in the barren wilderness, David trekked deep into the wasteland of the Valley of Baca. The interpretation of Baca (bacah) in the Hebrew could be translated, “The valley of weeping.” It was a dry lonely desolate place. As life became more desperate for David, his heart began to thirst for God. 

“How lovely (Beloved) is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” Psalm 84:1

This was not a muffled sob coming from David but a shrill longing cry from an anguished heart. The word that is here rendered cry, is from the Hebrew, that signifies to shout, or cry out with great emotion, as soldiers do at the beginning of a battle. 

While in the wilderness, with every labored step, he was longing for and crying out to be near to God.

“Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young—a place near your altar.” Psalm 84:3

The reawakening of spiritual thirst happens in the midst of adversity, not because of adversity. Trials will not produce revival within our hearts, neither will correct moral responses or behavior. It is as we draw near to God, that He draws near to us. In that synergistic moment we are touched by God and we are changed, and are never the same.

“ Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”  James 4:8

The Desert Ignites a Need to Praise God

There is something profoundly powerful and deeply moving, when our heart reaches up to praise God in the darkest night in our personal desert. When God hears the heart inspired praises of a Christian in the desert, it pleases Him for it is the epitome of trusting faith.

“In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  I Thessalonians 5:18

When David feigned madness before King Abimelech, and he hid in the dark lonely desert caves at Adullam, he wrote Psalm 34, with a key emphasis on praising God in the midst of adversity.  (See I Samuel 22:1-2; Psalm 142:4-7)

“I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” Psalm 34:1

 

That is why David was so moved to praise God in the desert valley of Baca, because he recognized that wherever he was, God was there with Him. In the desert he began to recognize that the God of the Burning Bush, had become the God of the Burning Heart.

“O Lord Almighty, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you. Selah” Psalm 84:3b-4

The Desert Stirs is a Hunger to Know God

 
While Paul was in prison, he had but one aspiration, “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” Philippians 3:10

Tough times stir the heart to become bitter and disheartened, or they stir the heart to a hunger to know God more deeply. For David, the journey through the Valley of Baca, could only be done with the strength of God. Spiritual strength came in the midst of the valley as he passed through it, not before he entered it. 

“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.” The natural heart is a pathless wilderness, full of cliffs and precipices. When the heart is renewed by grace, a road is made, a highway is prepared for our God." Frederick Fysh

 “As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.”  Psalm 84:5-7

The Desert Awakens the Heart to Worship God

There is no more comforting a place than on our knees worshiping God before the Throne of Grace. Everything else fades into silence while our heartbeat harmonizes with His Heartbeat, our purpose aligns with His purpose, and our will responds in obedience to His will. That most often happens in the midnight of our own Gethsemane.

“Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the Throne of Grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16
 

In the desert David was humbled by the majesty of God, and he experienced His presence while in the isolated barrenness of the desert. As he experienced the presence of God, and renewed his absolute trust in God, he could only bow his head and pray,

“Hear my prayer, O Lord God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob.  Selah Look upon our shield, O God; look with favor on your anointed one. Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. (Beloved) O Lord Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you.” Psalm 84:8-12

Thirst   Praise   Know   Worship

The more we Thirst for God, the more we will begin to Praise Him, and the more we Praise Him, the more we will hunger to Know Him, and the more we get to know Him, the more we long to Worship Him.

When you are in the desert remember that you are not alone...He is there, and it is not your strength that will get you through it but His. 

Take a few moments and reflect upon the meaningful and encouraging message in this song, "Find you on m Knees" by Kari Jobe