blog
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.
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.
In the Exodus story, and in our own lives, there is the water that drowns—and drowns out—the voices of the taskmasters. But there is another kind of water—the water that restores and brings rest. The work of God is not just to set free—the work of God is also to transform and to heal. What we find about freedom from taskmasters is that their voices may still linger. What we find about freedom from taskmasters is that their words may make us bitter. Indeed, no sooner has Miriam finished her song—“Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea” (Exod. 15:21)—than the Israelites are faced with bitter waters.
In the Exodus story, we find that God has power over both the enemy, who is crushed by God’s right hand, and over the waters themselves. The psalmist puts it this way—“When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled” (Ps. 77:16). Moses puts it this way—“Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?” (Exod. 15:2). The image of God, sung about by Moses and recalled by the psalmist, is of a powerful God who inspires awe, reverence, and fear. God has the ability to redeem his people from the very real oppression of the Egyptians in a powerful and mighty way.
Part of what the wilderness does is teach us to wait. The pillar of cloud and fire will remain where it is as long as God wants it to. But, the pillar does move. We will stay in wilderness forever unless we find ways to be brave, to pick up our stakes, and to follow the cloud, trusting that God’s presence dwells inside it. We are to trust that God knows when we’ve been in our particular wilderness long enough—to ask him to help us be brave to walk forward when the cloud begins to move, because eventually it will move. It will move because God moves in our lives. There is a way forward.
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.
