Words for the Hard Place (Part IV)

Words for the Hard Place (Part IV)

Part of the challenge of God in the wilderness is not to fight the work God is doing in our lives, but to allow ourselves to be held in the wilderness waiting. This is another promise God is making to the Israelites: When you feel stalled in the same place, know that waiting is part of the process. The pillar will move again when the time is right. I am with you in the waiting. Throughout their wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites are led by a pillar of cloud and fire: “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people” (Exod. 13:21-22).

Words for the Hard Place (Part III)

Words for the Hard Place (Part III)

What other “word” does God give to us in wilderness space? I think this is also one—when you think you’ll die in this wilderness, you need only be still. I am fighting for you with a power that is liberating, not abusive. When the Israelites go out into the wilderness and fight the Egyptians, they discover that God is fighting for them: “At the morning watch the LORD in the pillar of fire and cloud looked down upon the Egyptian army, and threw the Egyptian army into panic” (Exod.14:24).

Words for the Hard Place (Part II)

Words for the Hard Place (Part II)

In the wilderness, God tells us to trust that his provision is better. For the Israelites, that provision is bread—manna. “When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ For they did know what it was’” (Exod. 16:14-15). The manna is named for its very “what-ness”—the fact that the Israelites didn’t recognize what it was.

Words for the Hard Place (Part I)

Words for the Hard Place (Part I)

What are the words that God offers to us in the hard place? What are the ways in which God speaking to our hearts in the wilderness? There are many, but here is one—When you find yourself hungry and thirsty for the life you used to know, trust that what God gives you is better. The Israelites’ wilderness experience concerns actual hunger and thirst. “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” they cry (Exod. 17:3). They accuse: “For you have brought us out into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Exod. 16:3). They are actually hungry and actually thirsty, but their physical hunger and thirst symbolizes a larger reality—they have left everything that they know to journey into an uncertain future.

An Invitation to the Righteous

An Invitation to the Righteous

During the course of the meal, Simon berates this intrusive woman for her lifestyle and questions Jesus’ judgment for engaging her at all. Simon’s story illustrates that it’s easier to focus on someone else’s brokenness. His actions underscore a false piety intended to conceal his own brokenness. If I am to read this story honestly, I have to wrestle with all of the ways in which I am both this sinful woman—and this (falsely) righteous man.

An Invitation to the Unrighteous

An Invitation to the Unrighteous

The place to begin is with a woman knocking on a door. She has come because she has been invited. Admittedly, this invitation has taken place somewhere outside the realm of the story and of what we can see as readers. Nevertheless, we know she has been invited because Jesus says elsewhere: “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…” (Jn.6:44a NRSV)