Where Love Finds Us
“I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, your following after Me in the wilderness,” Jeremiah 2:2
Wilderness – You can’t dip into the pages of Scripture very long without finding yourself in the desert. Over and over, God’s real character is displayed in some wilderness scene. It is spiritually useful (and important) to ask why so much of God’s involvement with human beings revolves around wilderness themes. This verse from Jeremiah gives us a very good clue.
Our world is a world of the city. One of the greatest social problems facing the world today is the migration of millions and millions of people to the city. Beijing, for example, has an official population of 14 million, but if you counted all of those who have migrated there in search of work, you would have to add another 8 million. Displaced, uprooted, invisible, these people swell the slums and turn cities in collections of human destruction. It’s the same everywhere. The farm, the village and the town are giving way to the metropolis, a place where no one matters in the mad rush for power and accumulation.
Perhaps the greatest danger to human beings is not disease or starvation or war. It is capitalism. The destruction of human identity and significance in the name of profit stands behind this horrible inflow of humanity, numberless hands and feet in the business of feeding the consumption monster.
Maybe that’s why God loves the desert. In the desert I cannot survive by my own hand. In the desert I am faced with my utter dependence. In the desert I need mercy and care. In the desert, God is allowed to be what He most wishes to be – my faithful provider, shelter and friend.
Jeremiah tells us that once, in the desert, we desperately needed God. We were devoted to Him because our eyes were not clouded by self-production. We were in love with the God who took charge of our surroundings on our behalf. We trusted Him. There was no other choice. In the desert, without God we die.
If there is one symbol of our dangerous decision toward self-reliance, it is the city. This is the place that men built as a substitute for God’s proper role in life. If we want to renew our vows to the King who woos us, we will have to go back to His home, in the waste places of our lives where He reigns supreme.
