Some Wilderness Thoughts on a Saturday Night

Three Translations of Isaiah 40: 3-5
3 Listen! I hear the voice of someone shouting, “Make a highway for the LORD through the wilderness. Make a straight, smooth road through the desert for our God. 4 Fill the valleys and level the hills. Straighten out the curves and smooth off the rough spots 5 Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together. The LORD has spoken!” (NLT)	3 A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the LORD, make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (NIV)	3 A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5 Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (NRSV)

I am struck by the passage for many reasons which will be explained in later posts. This is, of course, the beginning of the chapter that will end with mounting up with wings like eagles, when we will run and not grow weary, walk and not faint. But oh, that wilderness!

One thing that really struck me the other day when I was meditating on this passage is that the highway for Jesus is built in the wilderness or desert. It is in the desert that we work to prepare the way for the Lord. When I sit in my comfort, I will not be in the business of roadbuilding. When I am in the desert, then the road is being built, the obstacles are being overcome, the hills leveled and the valleys raised. The wilderness is where the way of God needs to go because it is in that wilderness that God is most needed.

We all know that at some level, of course. I know that when I am in the wilderness I need God more than ever. So I pray more, I look for answers and guidance in God's will. I get impatient and want to find the way out no later than the day before yesterday. But that desert or wilderness time is when the way for the Lord to walk is being opened. That way leads into my life and soul and heart- through me- and into the world where I live and work.

Life has been a wilderness wandering for many months and several years. It has been a period when I have spent more time in prayer than at any time in my life. I kept looking for answers in the midst of the wilderness, when what I was doing was building the road on which my Lord would walk. I don't know if I can express how deeply and profoundly the awareness of building the road in the desert describes the place I have been and where I am going. It does lead to another thought as well, that if we are to be His disciples, it may be out there in the wilderness of the world where we need most to work as road builders and witnesses to the power of God's way.

There is much more to come on this. See you all on Monday.