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

Why does God allow Suffering?

The pathways that we all journey in life are often strewn with the jagged edged stones of disappointment. The more worn the pathway through the years, the more evident are the memorials along the way; altars of courage and hope that have been painstakingly made by the faithful trembling hands of fellow pilgrim travelers.

The stones along the pathway can be easily seen as obstacles to our physical and spiritual health, but God knows that the altars of deeper commitment are actually made of the heavy stones of suffering, 
 sacrifice, and a willingness to be faithful and obedient in the midst of difficult times of personal testing.

The Reality of Human Suffering

Woven throughout the history of mankind, is the undeniable reality of human suffering. Whether translated from cuneiform tablets of clay, deciphered from the hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt or painstakingly etched upon leather parchments by a Hebrew scribe, suffering and life are seamless companions. 

What has always inspired humanity in its search for sustainable hope and courage in the midst of tragedy and loss is not the innumerable examples of suffering found in history, but the indisputable discovery of renewed faith and the realization of the presence of God in the midst of suffering.

The Burden of Suffering

In life, we naturally long for pleasure not pain, joy not sadness and happiness not sorrow. We can become so frustrated by the disruption that an obstacle brings to our plans that we miss the precious lesson that we need to learn in the crucible of disappointment when things do not go the way that we expected. It is only as we lay the burden of our suffering before Him, that we can have any hope of finding His peace

In the darkest hour of a painful trial we can fail to see the outstretched hand of God ready to provide peace in the midst of the storm and needed strength for the lonely journey that lies ahead.

Helen Keller, reflecting on what is essential in life said, "The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse." 

Perspective in the Midst of Suffering
 

A valley is a mountaintop tuned upside down. The thin air and incredible trial of the deepest valley, is just like the precipice  of the most magnificent mountaintop. One should take great joy and kneel in gratitude that he has conquered the place of dark sorrow, still grasping hold of his living faith. He is a victor...not a failure.

When experiencing a physical trial that robs us of health, where we doubt God's sovereignty in the midst of suffering, what we need the most is courage; the courage to lift our eyes from the bleakness of the valley to see the promise of the summit that calls out to us to press on, and not succumb to despair.

The author of The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis, expresses in his book, The Problem of Pain, that "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." 

The Fellowship of His Suffering

We fail to realize that God's deepest work in us, the expression of His purest compassion and the discovery of His profoundest comfort is realized not in the ecstasy of sublime pleasure but in His companionable sharing of our suffering. It is the fellowship of His suffering (Phil. 3:10).

It is in the crucible of personal pain, and suffering, that the Quiet Place can hold precious meaning found no where else...for it is here that we discover a profound truth...When there is nowhere else to turn, nothing left to ease the suffering and no one near to understand what we are going through, He is there. In the Quiet Place we learn more and more that God is enough. 

Discovering Peace in the midst of Suffering

In the wilderness of suffering and loss, we can experience a significant depth in our walk with God as in no other way.

The 19th century writer, Havelock Ellis, penned, "The Promised Land always lies on the other side of the Wilderness."

What a joyous privilege to have found through relationship with Jesus Christ, the peace and wonder of having access to the very Heart of God.  The Promised Land springs up within, and is an oasis of spiritual sustenance and peace, amidst the arduous pilgrimage of the wilderness.

It is not upon reaching a utopian Eden that one discovers the presence of God, but on the dusty parched trek of the journey. 

The Silent Pilgrimage of Suffering

No one really understands the plight or pilgrimage of the sufferer. Not really. Perhaps not ever. That knowledge is God's private intimate capacity to know the sufferer as no one else can. On the arduous pathway of suffering, the Quiet Place becomes a hushed haven where tears and childlike prayers, whispered at midnight, are made with an awareness that God will always be there at our side. 

He is there warming our hearts, strengthening our steps and giving us the faith to not surrender to doubt and despair, no matter  what obstacle may block our path.

 Suffering in Grace in The Quiet Place

The challenge of overcoming physical and spiritual obstacles is not found in a self-help book or made up of a secret formula known only to a few. 
It is in the Quiet Place, pouring over God's Word, that understanding finally breaks through, like the crimson rays of a new sunrise. The Creator of the universe formed and made me, breathed the breath of life into my struggling lungs and gave my heart its first whispered beat. It should not be surprising that this same Creator knows how to lead me down the darkened pathway of suffering, to the Quiet Place of communing with him.

"You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.”   Psalm 139:2-4

It is not the removal of an obstacle that blocks our way, but the discovery of our inability to see that the obstacle may be there to teach us something within that may need refining, or some new aspect of the Love of God that He wants us to experience. 

He knows us better that anyone ever has or ever will. As a Master Sculpture, He shapes the very image of Christ along the pathways to the Quiet Place.

The pathway in life that is free of obstacles probably doesn't lead anywhere. 

^“ When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who watch over my way. in the path  

    where I walk”    Psalm 142:3-4

Take a few moments and listen to this inspirational and encouraging video.