“For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness.” Psalm 107:9

After the Desert

After a season of near-total spiritual dryness, like the winding roads in the desert of Joshua Tree National Park where every bend and turn looks the same, and nothing incites me to wander or explore, and the temperature is oppressive, and everything in sight appears to be so terribly thirsty—I sat with the Lord this morning to talk it over.

I haven’t talked anything over with the Lord for a month. Oh, I knew He was there, watching, waiting for me to sink back into His love and all the forms it takes. I never doubted His presence or His loving intentions concerning my state of heart and mind. I wasn’t lost or disillusioned about the Christian life.

But I asked Him frankly what I needed to do. How do I come back? What verses of the Bible should I read to accomplish this? What prayer should I pray? What could I do to get me back to where I was before with Him? Though I hadn’t been living in sin, I knew I had backpedaled to a place of self-absorption, indulgence and laziness. I had become apathetic to the things of God. (Do you see the word “pathetic” in apathetic? That’s just how I felt: pathetic.)

I wanted this prayer for restoration to be real. I didn’t want to parrot the old stuff. I thought I wanted to pick up where I left off, but as I tried to articulate that, I realized it wasn’t what I wanted at all. Nothing less than new life would do.

And then the truth came to me: my walk with God has never been dependent on me. I didn’t initiate it, I didn’t call myself, I didn’t keep me near Him, I didn’t adopt myself into His family. I have no power to save or redeem, I can’t give myself spiritual gifts. I can’t restore myself.

Yes, I admit there are things He tells us in His Word that we are to do as His people, things He knows are best for us, things that keep us in touch with Him. But I also know how easy it is to slip a little, to forget, to get distracted from what is important, perhaps to yawn our way through church or Bible-reading. We may bring this distancing on ourselves, or perhaps in the “course of human events” we become disillusioned, hurt, angry, or we suffer.

I make no excuse (although I believe most people would excuse me if I were to offer one.) Nothing less than the Spirit of God can restore me. I need His powerful working in me. I need not just a touch (as we so often pray, “touch me Lord”), but rather a powerful explosion of the joy and beauty of our Lord to rock my world. I need Him to break forth upon me in all His glory. I need Him to wake me from this sleep to His magnificence and splendor and majesty and wonder.

Stun me, Lord. Stun us all in this new year. Shake us loose from these doldrums, fill our sails again with Your breath. Light Your fire under us. Let us not wander in a desert place, fearing for our lives that do not belong to us anyway. Fill our sights with Your own self. Amen.