My devotional reading this morning was from the book of Exodus.
Let me set the scene:
Moses had gone up the mountain and while he was fully engaged with the Lord, the people were not. Where is this man Moses, who lead us out of Egypt? We do not know what has happened to him. And what of this God?
Even in spite of the miracles and wonders they had witnessed they chose to make an idol and we know how that ended.
In reading this section something occurred to me that perhaps I had been aware of before but never really clicked to.
The wilderness they found themselves in was a wilderness that God had not just created but had also chosen.
Generally, when I think of wilderness, I have an image of somewhere remote, somewhere isolated. Wilderness is not something conducive with comfort. It’s not glamping, there is a roughness around its edges.
When I hear the term “wilderness experience” I am reminded of a bush walk I undertook, many years ago , in the South Island of New Zealand. I was much younger, and a lot fitter than I am now.
There were three of us and a guide. We were dropped in by helicopter, and left in a small clearing in thick bush. Dense beech forest. And we walked, and walked, and walked some more.
Three days worth of walking.
The first day was mostly uphill following a narrow track. In the middle of the afternoon it began to snow. It wasn’t a heavy fall, enough to dust the ferns and deeper, thicker undergrowth.
The snow changed the quality of the light. It changed the way I felt about where I was. It wasn’t hard to stop and soak in the deep beauty of the place, the isolation was just part of where I was.
It wasn’t a huge leap to consider my vulnerability. The others, ignoring the first rule of bush walking, had gone ahead and left me behind. I wasn’t worried. There was only one path to follow.
At least, there was for a time.
Eventually I came to a fork in the road.
It was one of those God moments that we recognise only when we look back. The wilderness was about to become somewhere God had chosen for me. Yes, He chooses those moments of learning and correction, and those times of joy and blessing. And yet, aren’t they one in the same? Without the wilderness the journey means a little less than it should?
So here I was, with a choice. Off to the left, was a plateau, surrounded by snow capped peaks. To the right was a rise and the start of a forest, deep and rich and green and full of shadow in the chill afternoon.
I can’t remember the decision was a conscious one at all. I went to the right. (I should have gone left as it turned out.)
I stopped for a moment or two at the tree line. Down below on the plateau I could see the others, small figures in the vast basin formed by the mountains. There was a bit of shouting and pointing and ear cupping. I gleaned from it that I should keep on the path before me. I waved, turned and walked into the trees, was taken into their dappled embrace just as another dusting of snow started to fall.
I zipped my jacket up a bit higher. My camera was inside my jacket, I had become tired of it bouncing against my chest as I walked.
I remember well that feeling of complete solitude. I was on my own. Totally alone.
I came around a gentle bend in the track, not focused on much of anything really. It has been a long day and I was weary. Bone tired more like.
I stopped.
Standing on the path, not 50 meters in front of me was a stag. I have no words to describe him, other than he was magnificent. Trite as that might sound, he was full of strength and beauty and belonging. He was part of the forest, where I was a stranger.
I stood there for the longest time, just soaking him in. If I close my eyes I can still see him. Right now. Even all these years later, the vision of him has not faded.
This was a God moment. I didn’t realise it as the time. Not for many years did it make any sense at all. Not in that sense. And yet, it had been orchestrated. Even down to the fact that my camera was zipped into my jacket. If I moved even an inch …
He stood there, staring at me and then he turned and bounded away into the trees. Gone.
And once again I was in the wilderness. The same wilderness. And yet it was a very different wilderness. It was a wilderness touched by God who had lead me there to witness something seminal, something formational, something I have since come to see as deeply spiritual.
Something of God. And something only for me.
What a blessing.
I took a breath and kept walking. My steps were somehow lighter.
I reached the hut, about an hour later, just as the light was fading. My companions were already there, a fire had been lit, dinner was on the stove. My friend handed me a whiskey and I slept better than I ever have.
I never mentioned the stag. I never told anyone about him, not until many years later.
We might feel as if we are living in a wilderness moment, and I have lived through many of them, I may well be living through one now. There have been more valleys than mountains. Each valley has seemed deeper than the last. I have felt daunted, I have questioned my ability to cope, to come through it, see it to the end, only to find yet another valley branching off the one I’m in.
O Lord, is it meant to be this hard?
And yet, if I keep my perspective just so, if I am focused on what is true, if my eyes are fixed on Jesus, then the wilderness isn’t really a wilderness at all, rather it is a place He has given me to be, to teach me not just something about myself, but something about Him.
The wilderness can be cold and uncomfortable, a place where the flesh is unhappy. But the wilderness can also be a place of great spiritual blessing, a place where we find Him, where we are refreshed, renewed, and where He gives us life.