Wilderness

So I'm pondering this wilderness/night season. I'm realizing that there is much more about this in scripture than I ever noticed before. So my thoughts are overflowing...for example, how did John the Baptist learn to have joy in the wilderness? How did the Beloved in Song of Songs get to the point where she could state in confidence "I am my beloved's and His desire is for me." How did she get to the point where she could welcome the night season?! How did Job get to the point where he could say "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him?" I am so not there yet but I want to be. I don't know that it would make this night season any easier on me but I want it to be worthwhile...in other words, I want to learn what I am supposed to be learning in this night season. I wish I understood His ways. I want to understand His ways! I want to know what it is He is doing in me during this season. I guess I'll see the end result and hopefully then I'll get it to some degree. He doesn't seem to be acting much like a lover right now. He's just gone. I feel like my soul is in Sheol. I'm holding to promises right now...I'm holding fast...I need faith. Lots of it!

I think the more I read Psalm 16 the more I realize that this should be my life psalm. I'm clinging to verses 7-11.

Psalm 16 (Amplified Bible - Thank you, Holly! I love you!)

A Poem of David; [probably] intended to record memorable thoughts.

1KEEP and protect me, O God, for in You I have found refuge, and in You do I put my trust and hide myself.

2I say to the Lord, You are my Lord; I have no good beside or beyond You.

3As for the godly (the saints) who are in the land, they are the excellent, the noble, and the glorious, in whom is all my delight.

4Their sorrows shall be multiplied who choose another god; their drink offerings of blood will I not offer or take their names upon my lips.

5The Lord is my chosen and assigned portion, my cup; You hold and maintain my lot.

6The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; yes, I have a good heritage.

7I will bless the Lord, Who has given me counsel; yes, my heart instructs me in the night seasons.

8I have set the Lord continually before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

9Therefore my heart is glad and my glory [my inner self] rejoices; my body too shall rest and confidently dwell in safety (hope),

10For You will not abandon me to Sheol (the place of the dead), neither will You suffer Your holy one [Holy One] to see corruption.

11You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.

Am I hungry enough?

Am I hungry enough? Would I truly be content to just gaze upon the beauty of the Lord? If I never heard His voice, never got a prophetic word, never had a dream, a vision, or even a picture...would I still want to seek Him? If meditating on the Word felt like eating sand and my words seemed to hit the ceiling...would I continue in my pursuit of Him? Am I really hungry for God or am I just saying it to seem radical or fit in?

Am I really hungry? How do I know? What is the proof? Am I content to sit outside the gates and simply listen to Him breathe? Am I content to worship daily without receiving anything from God in return? Am I content to pursue Him without hope of catching Him?

Am I content to live in the wilderness? Am I content to weep without hope of relief? Am I content with too little? Or do I ask too much?

I don't deserve more than Hell. I don't deserve to be clothed as a lily nor fed as a sparrow. Why then do I yearn for more? Why then am I not content with His provision and the honor of sitting in His presence? Why am I not satisfied with anything less than everything...the fullness of Him?

If I am so undeserving why then do I crave more? Do I need to stop asking? Am I a beggar or a daughter? Who am I that I should be called a daughter of the Most High God? How can I be satisfied with the mere pursuit of God and not the finding of Him?

Is it wrong to be envious of my brothers and sister? You speak to them! They have pictures, words, insights, revelation! They have dreams and visions! Why not me?

Though I deserve nothing but silence, I ask, "Abba, speak to me!" Though I deserve nothing but desert, I ask, "Abba, quench my thirst. Feed me bread from Your hand." Though I deserve nothing short of eternal separation, I ask,"Abba, show me Your glory! Show me Your face! Stare into my eyes until Your fire consumes me!"

How can I walk as a daughter if I can't hear Your voice?

Hope

I'm not sure I like hope. Either you lay hope on the altar and yet hope God provides an alternative or you try to lose hope but can't because you still hope it might come true.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. - Prov. 13:12

Today has been rough...to say the least. I've been wrestling today. My eyes and head ache from weeping. I'm emotionally spent. I don't so much like the wilderness and I don't so much like the dark night. But somehow I have to rest in hope and trust that my Beloved is good and He will not leave my soul in Sheol. Yet that does not mean I will ever see my hopes fulfilled. So what then does it mean... That I rest in the knowledge that He is enough and all my suffering and pain is for His glory? At this particular moment that is not a comforting thought. Maybe I'm just greedy but I don't really like being barren in the wilderness. Plus I don't think that He would make me promises He doesn't intend to keep. Like Abraham, if I am to sacrifice this promise on the altar then I must have faith that God can provide an alternative or resurrect the dream. I honestly just don't want to be as old as Sarai or Elizabeth when it happens to be honest. Yet birthing a dream is a journey to and just as the hope gets bigger the greater the sorry when it dies and the greater the fear each subsquent attempt. I really don't like this place at all. I'm tired of crying...

From John Eldredge...

I can't take credit for writing it but I think it is vital to share.

"I’ve come to notice over the years that I need to pray over Christmas. Seems silly, but then again, our joy is opposed and the enemy hates us celebrating Jesus in any form, hates the love of friends and families, hates hopefulness. So, a heads up: Do pray for your Christmas, and the days around it. I want it to be good for you. Pray for us as well, that our staff is filled with the joy of God, that our days are protected.

It’s the third week of Advent, and with that I am thinking about Jesus’ next Advent, that is, his coming again. I was sharing with some folks yesterday that back in the ‘70s, when I became a Christian, it seemed like talk about Jesus’ return was pretty common. I thought it was a central part of the Christian life, the hope of Christ coming back. But the years passed, and folks don’t seem to talk about Jesus coming back hardly at all anymore. I don’t think its been good for our hearts. Our hopes are too short-range, and vulnerable. Just as our faith needs to be anchored in the fact that he did come for us, and not constantly held up for question with each new turn of events (will he come now?), so our hope needs to rest in the fact that he is coming again, and will usher in a Kingdom that fulfills all our deepest longings and then some. As George MacDonald wrote, “We may say to ourselves, one day these souls of ours will blossom into the full sunshine, when all that is desirable in the commonness of daily love, and all we long for of wonder and mystery and the look of Christmastime will be joined in one, and we shall walk as in a wondrous dream yet with more sense of reality than most of our waking joy now gives us.” So, I’m letting this Advent season be a time to reflect on his first coming, and on his second. Christmas is beautiful because it speaks of the coming Kingdom."

The depths

I didn't know there was so much to Google! I am amazed.

I'm not sure how this will work out now that I seem to have two blogs but we shall see how this experiment ends up...

God is so good. I cannot wait to see what this new year holds. Is it bad that I'm not nearly as excited about Christmas as I am about going to the Onething conference? Maybe it's because God has been convicting me about how important "stuff" is to me. I love getting together with family but this year has been a bit of a bummer thus far because half of my family didn't come to our Wiegand Christmas (of course the 1/2 I never see!) and my Carter grandparents are not doing well and may be going home soon. It's just a little sad and frustrating this Christmas. I'm very much looking forward to all that God has for us in 2007...not because I am unsatisfied with 2006 but rather I just have this sense of expectancy that big things are coming. I'm enjoying this new desire to pursue God wholeheartedly.

I wait in expectancy for Your glory to come down, Lord! I want to see Your glory!