Category: Stories of the Desert

 “Elijah left and did what the Lord’s Word had told him.

 He went to live by the Cherith River,

which is east of the Jordan River.

Ravens brought him bread and meat

in the morning and in the evening.

And he drank from the stream.

But after some time the stream dried up because no rain had fallen in the land.”

1 Kings 17:5-7

It’s no fun being a Prophet.  It’s tough being the “bearer of bad news” from God to people…often to powerful leaders.  Elijah was cutting edge …the first in a long line of important prophets God would send to Israel and Judah.   Elijah had no guide book to follow.  And the messages God told him to tell wicked rulers were Bad News.

No wonder he gave his messages and then left. Quickly.  Very quickly.

This time, he had bad news for King Ahab. There would be no rain or even dew for the next few years.  Ahab’s “god Baal” was the “god” who brought the rains and good harvests.  So Elijah delivered the news….and ran.   (He seemed to do a lot of running…)   Ahab was left with a situation of water in his kingdom drying up, in the face of his “god of rain.”

God led Elijah to a river where he could rest and be peacefully alone.  (Prophets seem to be very comfortable with “alone.”)  God sent ravens (considered “unclean” birds for God’s people) to bring bread and meat to Elijah.  The “dirty” ravens that he would have found “unclean” and very distasteful in normal circumstances, brought him bread and meat each day….a most unlikely delivery service that God used to take care of His chosen prophet.

But day after day, the stream began to run more slowly, and shrink from its banks.  It went from a clear running stream to a narrow trickle.  Grasses began to wither…turn brown.  It was more and more difficult to catch the water to drink.  It must have felt like each day brought him nearer to his death.   He had delivered the message of no rain or harvests as God had directed, but had God really meant that he would suffer as well?   Wouldn’t he have been excused?

Try to imagine the mental and emotional battle growing in Elijah as he sat each day, alone, watching his life dry up. What would you be thinking?  How well do you wait?  To what do you run when life gets tough…when there’s nothing you can do to change your circumstances?  When you feel that life is slipping away, and you cannot stop it?   When you begin wondering, ‘Where is God?   I thought I was doing what He’d told me to do!”

Elijah’s life was at risk on two fronts:  a murdurous king chasing him, and the bare necessities of life disappearing.  What God had said would happen, was happening.  Elijah simply hadn’t expected it would happen to him.

Yet, just at the right time, God spoke, telling him to go to a village outside of God’s peoples’ land (hostile territory.) He told Elijah exactly who he would meet (a widow) and that God had instructed her to feed him.  (She had no food.)

The story is one that only God could come up with, using most unlikely people struggling in impossible circumstances. Nothing humanly logical.  The ingredients of miracles.

But there was something that was coming “just around the corner” that God needed to prepare His Prophet to face. . . a certain Ultimate Showdown on a certain mountaintop.  Elijah would need every ounce of faith for what was ahead.  God’s “School of Faith” beside that stream, with the dirty birds, and the widow/son living in extreme poverty, were inserted into Elijah’s life.

He was being prepared  for what God knew was coming.

“Sing to God;

make music to praise His Name.

Make a highway for Him to ride through the deserts.

The Lord is His Name.

Celebrate in His Presence.

The God who is in His holy dwelling place

 is the Father of the fatherless

and the Defender of widows.”  

Psalm 68:4-5

God loves music.  He created it.   His Song fills Heaven, and He clearly wants it to be used on this earth to praise His Name. He doesn’t give many details as to how it should sound.  He just loves to hear us humans singing and making music to praise Him.  He even specifies to focus on His Name.   That gives a lot of lee-way for the music-making. After all, He knows us, our capabilities, our talents and our musical abilities.  Or inabilities.  It doesn’t seem to matter that much…as long as we’re singing to Him with joy…with praise.

Imagine your own child making up a song telling the good things about YOU.  Would you get picky about the vocal quality? The musical skill?  The grammar?  The lyrics?   Probably (hopefully!) not.  It would be a joy just to hear the song they made up about you, describing the good things…the things they love about you.

I think it’s probably the same idea of God’s joy in hearing us – His kids – sing aboutHim, andtoHim.

It’s interesting that immediately following those words, He tells us to “make a highway for Him to ride through the deserts.  The Lord is His Name.”   Have you ever driven through a desert?….without a road or highway?  It’s brutal.  It’s dangerous.  It’s either hard, rocky, ground that can easily wreck a vehicle (and then you die out there), or it’s “sinking sand” that can literally bury a truck  or person (and then you die out there).

The “Great Desert” of Bible stories stretches from the Middle East all the way through North Africa.  It is the “least reached” part of the globe, as the majority of that massive region has never heard, read, nor met people who know and follow Jesus.

That region of the world is a great, vast desert….literally and spiritually.

God tells us to make a highway for Him to ride through the deserts.  And He wants us to do it with a Song….a Song of Joy about Who He Is.  He has a role for us to play in Singing His Story where there is little known of Him.

Notice the two key parts of His identity that He wants us to “sing”:

He is:

• Father of the fatherless Through the brutal wars that have taken place in the past and are on-going in the present, there are millions of fatherless children in The Desert:  Middle East and North Africa.  His heart longs to be the Father to all those fatherless children.  They have seen so much death, have lived in dire, on-going war and fear, and are without the love, safety, protection and provision of a father.

• Defender of widows Women are often of low value in that part of the world.  Widows are the most at risk.  They have little or no protection.   God wants them to know, to experience His Perfect, Powerful Protection over them. What a tender, welcome message for a part of this globe that has no idea of His Heart for them. 

God invites us to make the highway through the desert upon which He will ride as Good News…the Best News….to a broken, suffering world that waits to hear…

When we first met our “desert nation” in 1999, we were told that we were the first “Followers of Jesus” they had met. We were watched carefully, lest we “ruin” their world with our Western ways and religion.   However, within a few years, the first “public events” we were invited to bring were Worship Concerts, singing the songs they had come to love as we would sit through long, HOT afternoons with our CDs of songs of God and Jesus.  Our worship concerts went to every camp.

I think, without realizing it, that we were “making a highway through the desert” that He could ride through with the wonderful news of Who He Is…..”Father to fatherless, Defender of widows….”    All Good News!

What part of the Highway has He put you to work on?  Are you working on it?   Building that highway….that God will walk on to bring our lost world to encounter Him.

“As a father has compassion for his children,

 so the Lord has compassion

 for those who fear him.”

Psalm 103:13

Fathers have a very special role in the lives of their children. It’s different from the emotionsthat mothers feel toward their children. Compassion involves a choice of actionthat will meet a need.  This verse also includes an attitude of the child toward that father……an attitude of God’s children toward the Father.  It’s not the kind of “fear” that we think of as being afraid.  “…those who fearHim” have a true respectfor Him…respect for what He thinks, what He knows, and what He does, and who He is.

In the desert, there is great emotional love for one’s mother. She’s the nurturer…the one who provides emotional love and care.  Moms are comforting, tuned-in to the emotional well-being of their children. They’re the ones to snuggle.

Fathers, especially throughout the generations before my desert people became refugees, were the ones to whom the children had to give great respect.  If the radio was playing and the father or grandfather came into the tent, the radio was quickly silenced.  The father’s needs became the priority of the whole family.  There was no unruly behavior in his presence, no disregard of his presence in the room….no sillyness or shouting.  Rarely was there physical expression of love.  Even singing (unless requested) was seen as disrespectful of the father / grandfather.

But if a child was suffering in any way, most fathers would step in to do something to ease the suffering.  It was not very emotional, but rather, choices and actions to help bring an easing or rectifying of the problem.  Compassion causes us to choose to do something to ease suffering.   Fixing the problemis not always the wisest thing to do.

Sometimes, a desert father’s compassionrequired him to be away from his family for long periods of time….whether to engage as a soldier to protect his family and people, or traveling to find work to support his children.  These are not usually “emotional” choices, nor are they experienced as emotional “love” by the children.  But they are choices motivated by love that takes action as compassion.

Our Heavenly Father is most worthyof our deepest respect. Our contemporary world is not very familiar with “deep respect” (‘fear’) of other people.  Often, that lack of deep respect (fear)seeps into our attitude toward our Heavenly Father.   May we consider…and check our own hearts…

“God’s way is perfect!

The promise of the Lord has proven to be true.

He is a shield to all those who take refuge in him.” 

Psalm 18:30

We hear much about the plight of refugees in our world.  We see pictures, hear statistics, and may even try to help in some way.  But for most of us, the experience of being violently forced out of our home with only what we can carry is far, far away from our personal reality.

When I first visited the desert refugee camps of my Saharawi people, I would ask to hear their memories of being driven from their homes.  They described their shock, their panic to run from the military violence, their terror for family members who were not with them. They described their desperation of running for their lives but not knowing where to go except for the deadly desert that bordered their homeland.  Bombs, gunfire, deadly chemicals were being unleashed on them as they ran. The memories were old, but the tears flowed as if it had happened yesterday.

The “way” of this world is filled with trauma and tragedy. It has been so since its beginning.

What a dramatic contrast from “God’s way” . . . perfection.  He has given this world such promise!  Such hope!

The writer of this Psalm had experienced God Himself being his “Shield” and “Refuge.”   God Himself is the Shield, that piece of armor that covers and protects our heart and head from the deadly attacks that target us.  When we run to Him, our Refuge, we find safety.  But a Refuge can only become that safe place when we step inside.  There is no “refuge” if we stand outside and look at it, or lean against it, or point it out to our Enemy.  We need to enterour Refuge, and stay there.  On His terms, not ours.

These are words of war . . . of battle . . . of  a choice as to which side you are on.  There are no by-standers in a war.  We have the incredible advantage of knowing Who will Win the War that rages over us.  But as the battles rage, God offers us Protection as refugees who have run to Him . . . run for our lives.  It’s not a game.  It’s not a movie.  It’s not just a “good idea.”  It is war.

God’s perfect way, promised, proven and true, is offered to us if only we will run into His Refuge as He battles for our lives.

“Yet, the strength of those who wait with hope in the Lordwill be renewed.

They will soar on wings like eagles.

They will run and won’t become weary.

They will walk and won’t grow tired.”

Isaiah 40:31

How do you handle “waiting?”   Are you a fidgeter?  A snoozer? A pacer?  A snacker?  A complainer? An I’ll-just-do-a-little-work-while-I’m-waiting-er?   Do you analyze the inefficiencies that are causing your wait?  Do you just sit back and watch all the other waiting folks? Do you tell your entire life story to the person waiting next to you?

Life is full of “wait.” It can be tiring, frustrating, and stressful.

Or, it can be transformational.

In the desert, nearly 200,000 people wait.  They wait for justice, for attention, and for their return to their homeland.  It’s been a 40+ year wait.  (Like some other desert refugees who were dreaming of the Promised Land of their future.  Sound familiar?)

Waiting can be exhausting…maddening….discouraging. Isaiah wrote this beautiful description of waiting “with hope in the Lord.”  He describes strength occurring within the wait.

• Soaring –  the way eagles soar.  They float, effortlessly.  They catch the wind and let it carry them.  They see the things of earth as far smaller than we earth-walkers see them.  Far less significant.  When we catch a glimpse of the soaring eagle, it takes our breath away in it’s power, beauty, strength…defying one of the greatest laws of earth – gravity.
• Run– and not become weary. Like a long-distance runner.  Marathon winners run like the wind.  Every muscle in top condition.  Finding that pace … that perfect stride where every part is working together in such unison that the speed and rhythm seems to enter into a realm that breaks through the constraints of this earth and enters a freedom unlike anything else of this world.
• Walk– and not faint. Slow and steady forward movement. It allows for more time to take in the surroundings, enjoy the views.  Walking makes conversation possible, with more time to think….and look….and make ‘going the distance’ more feasible.

My desert family/nation has been one of the greatest living examples I have ever witnessed of the realities of Isaiah’s words.  They had to flee their homeland in fear and horror, by any means possible.  Car, truck, running on foot. . . and eventually walking, traumatized and grieving. They journeyed into their unknown future in the desert.  They lost so much, yet clung to their faith that God was in charge of their lives and future.  As the years passed, they regathered in that impossible desert, establishing temporary homes, schools, a government, while holding onto their identity and culture.

They wait.  For justice to come, for  the world to know, and for God to intervene.  But they do not wait in despair.  They have learned to rise above their tragedy….to look up to the heavenlies and to soar.  They continue to run the long race of life…with grace and determination.  And they walk in faith that God sees, God knows, and that He is the only One truly worthy of their honor.

“God was with the boy as he grew up.

He lived in the desertand became a skilled archer.”  

Genesis 21:20

Way back near the beginning of the Bible’s history lessons, there was a little boy who was born to a slave woman.  His father loved the boy, but  he eventually had to make a difficult choice which meant the boy would live alone with his mother.  They would live out their lives in a harsh desert.

Many families are “broken families” in the refugee camps in the Sahara.  Due to war, lack of job opportunities, harshness of life, and the realities of survival in refugee realities, there are many children who live with their mothers, but without their fathers. Grandfathers and uncles often step in to help raise the children. 

 Desert life is a world of its own, with values, principles, and training by their families on how to handle life in its harsh realities.  Little boys from the age of 3 are taught to know the night sky. They learn of the constellations and the North Star.  For them, it could be a life-saving education. 

In the vast desert (the same desert that stretches all the way into the lands of many of the Bible’s desert stories), there are only rare landmarks, “roads”, or signs to follow.  The nights, especially, are the most dangerous as untrained travelers become disorientated, lost, and die. 

Knowing the night sky, with the stars giving orientation and direction to endless sands, is critical for survival.  This boy would have had to know well the nighttime Map written in the sky. 

“God was with him as he grew up…”

What a tender statement for this desert boy, without his father.  God Himself stepped into a fatherless son’s life, and wrote him into His Story.  God’s Story continues to be intertwined with that desert boy’s story . . . after all this time. 

“Before the mountains were born,

before You gave birth to the earth and the world,

You were God.

 You are God from everlasting to everlasting.

Indeed, in Your sight a thousand years are like a single day,

 like yesterday—already past—

 like an hour in the night.”  

Psalm 90:2,4

As a human creature on this earth, it is impossible for me to wrap my mind around this passage. My life is daily dictated by “time.” And the limitations and definitions of “time” that we follow seem to have no similar limitations to God.  He set Time for us, as part of Creation.  He didn’t need it.  We did.  God’s perspective of Time is far beyond what I can grasp.  Yet, my life is deeply enmeshed in earth’s Time.

This was never so clear to me until my life collided with my Desert people.  Nothingran in accordance to my understanding of Time.  Rarely did I see anyone with a wristwatch (yes, this was before cellphones and all the time-related apps in them).  In fact, by my second trip I began taking off my watch while on the last plane.  One less item that only caused frustration! 

After many trips there, I began to realize how much less frustration the people experienced, even though they were living in an extremely harsh and tragic situation.  There was a natural flow to daily life.  They all moved in a very relaxed way through their days.  Life would unfold as it would, without all the frustrations and demands normally placed on other people or themselves.  Over time, I came to see that the things that many of my well thought out plans and agenda were really outside of my control anyway.  Those things that were in God’s Plans would either take place as I had hoped, or would come to pass in the future.  It required much more trust of Him on my part to intentionally put it all into His Hands and be patient.   So many times, whatever He orchestrated  was far better than what I had planned.

How often do we try to hold God to the system of Time by which we live?   We assume that He follows the time limitations and expectations that we follow on this planet.  He does not.  This reality requires far more trust on our part . . . trust of Him and all that He is doing.  We see a small dot of the eternal Picture He is painting.

Once in a while we catch a tiny glimpse, and we are in awe.

“The Lord Almighty is my strength.

He makes my feet like those of a deer.

He makes me walk on the mountains.

 For the choir director; on stringed instruments.” 

Hab.3:19

There is a lot of desert in the Land that God gave to His people.  There are also mountains.  When I read this verse, I think of a particular oasis in the desert of Israel, the place where David and Saul had their famous shouting match. There is a waterfall where waters from the heights of Jerusalem, having traveled underground, spill out into this mountain oasis…utterly beautiful in its contrast to the surrounding desert.

As our group begins to walk the long path to the waterfall, we move higher and higher. The rocky path narrows and becomes more challenging.  By the time we reach the sparkling waters flowing from Jerusalem gushing out of the rock, its contrast to the rocky desert surroundings are a pure delight. Many walk right into the sparkling, refreshing water.

But along the way, there are often gazelles (small, mountain deer) perched on rocky ledges, watching our human struggles to move along the mountain paths below them.  They easily bound up the side of the cliffs in ways we could never maneuver.  And they watch us struggle, panting as we go, clinging to any rocky outcrop along the way.

Part of the wonder of watching these deer move along the steep cliffs is not only the ease with which they climb, but the grace with which they move.  Effortless.  Sure-footed. Natural.  Fearlessly.  Like a beautiful song.

David, in this desert oasis, watched a similar scene often each day.  He had been running and hiding for his life. Seeing these fleet-footed deer easily maneuvering terrain that could surely lead to a man’s death, David could relate.  Surrounded by the harsh desert and the steep, rocky paths along the exposed mountain wall, David saw himself being strengthened and motivated to stand firmly on his Rock of Salvation.

As I move through the steep, rocky paths of life, I want to have such a confidence in God’s constant Presence and Guidance in my life.  I don’t want to be clinging to a safe spot, white-knuckled and stuck.  I want to move forward gracefully and fluidly, knowing I was made for this Journey, and this Journey was made for me. . . like the deer on the cliffs.  I want my life to be a song that others can join in on the words and melody.  It’s a simple song, sweet and clear, that David gave us.  But its meaning and truth continues through the ages.