Hamilton just came out on Disney + and if it is anything like other Disney movies, those songs are going to be on repeat for a long while. They are going to be played at home, in your cars, at your workplace, and pretty soon they will be playing on repeat in your head. Eventually, they will randomly get stuck in your head without invitation. This “earworm”, or “brainworm” as it is sometimes called, could be a song that takes you back to a time that makes you smile or reminds you of a memory. But occasionally you get songs stuck in your head that you may not necessarily like or want to be stuck in your head (don’t worry, I’m not talking about Hamilton songs). You are forced to keep coming back to them. For me, this happens with thoughts too. A thought can break through the monotony of other thoughts and capture your attention so that you can no longer ignore it. Over the past few months, there has been a thought that keeps coming back up, uninvited, begging for my attention. This is much more persistent than any Disney song that gets stuck in my head for only a few hours. The thought that has been stuck in my head, continually coming back no matter how many times I pushed it aside, was a verse. Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. -- Hosea 2:14 That concept makes me stop in my tracks. It makes emotion well up in the back of my throat. It catches my breath as I wait for the promise to disappear, yet it remains. The promise that even in the wilderness, we are not alone. At first, I read this verse, then reread it, marveled at its beauty and then moved on. I did not stop to take the time to meditate on it or break it down. But then, just like a song that gets stuck in your head, it would keep coming back up, forcing me to give it attention. So I started to dissect that one sentence. What does it mean? At first glance, it seems self-explanatory, but then when you dig deeper, there is so much to unpack.
Cool, cool, cool; so now I get what it means, but how does that transfer to 21st century America where I am not living in middle of a wilderness? What does it look like for the Heavenly Father to speak tenderly when he is not physically present for me to hear his voice? The “beholding” came each time this verse popped in my head. Each time I stopped and thought about Hosea 2:14 and repeated it in my thoughts. I stopped; I gave attention to it. The “allure” came as my Heavenly Father pulled me towards Himself in a dance that I may never fully see. But I see the allure in the times that He brought this verse to mind, never letting me be rid of it. I saw the dance continue through the way He drew my attention to Him, using a pandemic of all things. It was beautiful and it was powerful this dance he pulled me into. “Wilderness”. It is a word often used in the Christian culture to mean a “dry season”; a season of little growth, a season of not knowing where the Lord’s presence is or what fruit is being shown in your life. This is where we get to the nitty gritty. I thought I understood what the wilderness was. It was a barren place; a place void of growth; stagnant. In this space, time with the Lord felt forced, and it was hard to see the Lord’s work. But then, oh but then, the wilderness turned into something completely different when the world flipped on its axis in March. The world shut down. No longer were we able to go to church. No longer were we able to meet for small group. No longer could we catch up with friends over a cup of coffee or a plate of tacos. We could not even go to work. “Wilderness” took on a whole new meaning when community was essentially ripped from us. For months, I sat, waiting for the speaking tenderly part. I felt as though I was on a camping trip and had been left behind, sitting on a rock, waiting for the guide to call me and tell me where to go. So I sat and waited. But in reality, I was running around in the woods yelling so that even if the guide had called my name, I wouldn’t have been able to hear him. “Speak tenderly to her”. He does not yell over the noise. He draws us to the wilderness so He can speak tenderly to us. But I was too busy running in circles, panicking that I had been left behind. He drew me, allured me, into the wilderness in one of the most unexpected ways. He used a pandemic. We were thrown into isolation. And I was forced to slow down. In the slowing down, it all grew quiet. Now I was actually on the walk, waiting to listen, even if it was begrudgingly. But there He met me, and even though I was the toddler pouting and not wanting to listen, He showed up. In the midst of the pandemic wilderness, this is what I have seen. #1 When it is all stripped away, you see what your idols are.For me, I idolize community. I have this picture in my head of what it should look like. I have an idea of what kind of community group I should have, a kind of friend group I should have. I have depended on this type of community to make me feel encouraged in my faith, even safe. But my relationship with God is not dependent on others. My anxiety is not released because of community, but because of a God who cares to stoop down to me and take it away from me. I do not feel loved and whole because of the love of broken humans, but because of the love of an Almighty God that heals and restores what is broken. I do not grow because of the people around me, I grow by abiding in the Vine. While God uses community for growth and encouragement, they are not the Source of growth and encouragement, He is. Yes, they are a tool that He can use to sanctify us, but I cannot depend on community, even godly community, to save me. That is why He is the one that draws us to the wilderness. He wants an individual relationship with us, not only a communal one. He drew her to the wilderness, not them. Our relationship with the heavenly Father is individual, not dependent on others. #2 Isolation leads to intimacyThe world has slowed down, forcing the quiet on us all. Rather than our minds being bogged down by checklists and scheduled coffee dates, our minds are forced to be filled with something else. You have a choice what that something else is. At the beginning of the pandemic, I admit my choice was selfish. I was still that kid in the woods, running around, being distracted by all of the options around me rather than listening to the voice that was speaking quietly. But, there was not a clear end in sight to this change of pace, so Netflix could no longer be the only way to fill the extra space. I began what I should have done from the very beginning: I sought growth. I began with the Psalms. Even though that is the typical place to start, and I almost did not start there because of that. But I started in the Psalms because much like our uncertain world, the Psalms are filled with the thoughts and feelings in response to uncertainty, anxiety and fear. Then, as my heart was quieted, His tender voice came through, again in one of the unlikeliest of ways; through a podcast. Now a podcast being His means of communication is not unlikely because I think they do not hold value or worth. On the contrary, I love the idea of podcasts, but I have never been able to stick with a podcast. I have, however, been following the Journeywomen podcast and they posted a podcast called “Grounding Ourselves in God’s Word” (ep. 123 if you like podcasts -- go give it a listen). And I listened to it. This podcast inspired me to start reading through the whole Bible, something I have never done. I am following The Bible Recap plan, which leads you through the Bible chronologically. I don’t know why it took him drawing me to the wilderness in the midst of a pandemic to start this, but I believe this is how He is and will continue to speak tenderly to me. So how does isolation lead to intimacy? It does so by pulling your focus to one. Like the boy trying to get individual attention with the girl he likes, intimacy requires time away from everything else in order to focus on the relationship in front of you. #3 Suffering is not meaningless.The world is hurting. We are all tired of the brokenness. The isolating pandemic. The rampant racism. The hatred and broken reaction to all of it. It is easy to wonder where God is in it all. Did He forget the world? Does he have something else that is grabbing His attention? As I started The Bible Recap reading plan, I began to explore the idea of suffering. The plan travels chronologically through the Bible, meaning that we started reading the book of Job right after the tower of Babel. Reading the book of Job in middle of the turmoil of the world right now, could not have been more timely. The book of Job is all about suffering, of reactions to suffering, and of reminding ourselves of God's faithfulness in our suffering. Suffering is not meaningless. He is still present. John Piper, in an article for "Desiring God", exhorts anyone who is tempted to think that suffering is meaningless.
#4 The wilderness is not barrenAny time I heard or saw the wilderness mentioned before, I immediately thought of a desert. It was a barren place, dry, devoid of life. It was a place that I assumed represented unanswered prayers, loneliness, and bitterness. But this is not the place he brings us to in order to speak tenderly to us. “Speak tenderly to her”. So what is He saying? I don’t think he’s done saying it, but for now, I think he is saying that the wilderness can be beautiful. Taking a deeper look into the word wilderness, it does not mean barren or desert. It means a pasture or wild, open field; it is an uncultivated space. That is beautiful! Imagine a space that has not been touched by human pollution. It has not been damaged by the creation of a city. It has not seen the footsteps of many trample the plants growing wildly. It is beautiful, untouched, intimate. It is a space for just us, for Him to speak tenderly to her and for her to sit quietly and listen. In this space, He cultivates. This space is not barren, but holds promise for growth and beauty. I had assumed the wilderness meant it was lonely and devoid of emotion or feeling. I imagined the wilderness to be a place that I felt distant from the Lord and did not see Him working. But why would the Lord allure us to such a place? His Scripture says He does not leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6). This includes in the wilderness. So what does the wilderness look like? Well you will have to talk with the Lord about what that looks like for you. For me, it is a space where distractions are removed. I have found some of the things that take most of my time unnecessarily and removed them. It is a space of shifted priorities. For those things that are good, but in moderation, I have changed the amount of time I spend on them. It is a space where my posture is one of dependency on my Heavenly Father and how He will teach me and draw me to Himself through the wilderness. This is something that I must ask for because He is the one that transforms my heart, but the wilderness pushes me to ask. The wilderness is not the barren, lonely place I have thought of it before. It is a place of growth, of intimacy, and of restoration. So if I could leave you with one thought, it would be this: Do not miss the flowers and the beauty of the wilderness because you are too concerned with what you are missing. He has brought you there to speak tenderly to you. Listen. Behold. And hear his voice.
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