God comes to the Israelites in the midst of their pain and tells them that he wants to bring them to a better place. Those of us who know the story, however, know that they have to go through a hard place—wilderness—to get to the better place. Wilderness is a kind of “space between”—a space between enslavement and freedom. Wilderness is the place where we lead ourselves, where life lead us, or where God leads us—to deal with our pain.
And so to the wilderness the Israelites must go. That is the place where God will help them deal with their pain. That is the place where they will encounter God. The whole experience begins and ends with God. That does not mean, however, that the Israelites—and we—do not have a role to play. The Israelites have to be willing to go through this hard place, and I would say the same thing about us—there is a part we play. We must go. If the wilderness is the place where God takes us to face our pain—or at the very least, uses to help us face our pain—then we have to be willing to take t hose first, scary steps. In taking those first, scary steps, we begin the important transition from the place of slavery, journeying through the hard place to the better place. So a key truth about the wilderness is this—the wilderness is the in-between space between slavery to our pain and freedom from our pain. The wilderness is the place where we go out and face our pain. As Carol Ochs says, “Until we take on our pain, we cannot take on the rest of our lives.” But God will not force us. A taskmaster commands—God allures. Jesus, of course, asks it this way: “Do you want to be well?” (John 5:6). And I think that’s the question God is asking us all. When the honest answer we can give—to God and to ourselves—is a resounding “yes”—God makes his way to us. God comes to us like the sun in the morning—when it is time.
After 430 years, it was time for the Israelites. The Bible teaches us that God’s presence, power, and provision was with them every step of the way. Toward the end of his lament, the psalmist of Psalm 77 recalls the Israelites’ journey through the wilderness and through the Red Sea. And he makes this striking statement: “Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen” (Ps. 77:19). God’s presence—God’s footprints—and God’s provision—was with the Israelites all the way through the wilderness.
We can say many things about the wilderness, of course, but this is key—the wilderness is the place God uses to speak to our hearts. This is, indeed, what the LORD says through the prophet Hosea: “Behold, I will allure her [Israel], and bring her into the wilderness and speak to her heart” (Hos. 2:14). Hosea reveals something extraordinary—that in the heart of God, there is a longing for us. The language Hosea uses is language of betrothal. “I will betroth you to me forever,” he says (Hos. 2:19).
Jesus puts it this way: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Matt. 28:20b; Heb. 13:5), “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt.28:20). In the heart of God, the Israelites are “my people,” we’re told in Hosea and much earlier in Exodus (Hos. 2:21-23).
The language is intimate and relational. In short, the language is personal. We experience the love of God in a personal way because God is not a concept—God is a person.
The biblical God is not the God of the Deists, far removed from us, disengaged with who we are.
The biblical God is likewise not the property of scholars—a curiosity to be dissected, deconstructed, stripped of his power and all that he is.
Instead, God is deeply personal and deeply engaged with our lives. If God sends us to the wilderness to deal with our pain, we can be assured that God will meet us there. Wilderness is the place where God is. God is everywhere, of course, but he is, I think, especially here, in the places that hurt. God is most present in the places where we feel like a child. And it’s here, in wilderness, where God speaks to our hearts.