At Home in Waste Places
“Thus says the LORD, ‘The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness.’” Jeremiah 31:2 NASB
Wilderness– Not everyone finds grace in the wilderness. God says that His people, the ones who have survived the sword, the ones He calls Israel, find something unexpected in the desolate wasteland. They find grace.
Imagine the joy of finding what your soul longs for in a place where no man can survive! The wilderness, where we know we will die on our own, is God’s playground of grace. Why? Because grace is for those who know they cannot survive without it. Grace does not arrive in the midst of affluence. It is not found in the air-conditioned, video-enhanced, amplified and opulent monuments to what we can do without the Spirit. Grace comes to us, powerfully, personally, in the desolation of our lives. Grace is a partner of desperation.
The amazing fact of life is that we are all desperate. We are all desolate. We are all in need of the sustaining Spirit. But we will not all find grace in our wilderness. Grace is for those who survive the sword. Who are these people? They are the ones to whom God says, “You shall be My people, and I will be your God.” Surviving the sword means putting your life in the hands of your God as the world slices away at you. It means cutting loose from the patterns that block your way into the wilderness. It means standing unafraid in the face of hardship, pain and death. It means that God is the Lord of my life no matter what circumstances I may encounter. It means worshipping Him even if He doesn’t save us from the furnace or restore us from disaster because He is worthy of my allegiance.
Some will flee the wilderness. They will seek remedies for self-protection. They will turn from the call to cut away the patterns of a world in rebellion. They will say, “I wish I could live by faith, but I have to be practical.” They do not know that grace resides in empty places. Mercy comes unexpectedly, not by religious incantations or magical name formulae. Mercy is unmerited surprise. But you can’t be surprised by something that you plan and control. Dogma and doctrine never gave us mercy.
Where are you today? In the wilderness, feeling the pain of the sword? Or are you comfortable in the city made by men? How can grace encounter you if you really don’t need it?
Topical Index: grace, mercy, wilderness, Jeremiah 31:2
These last two TW are deep and real – thanks Skip for sharing. I’m in the wilderness and feeling the pain…trusting for an answer, mercy and grace.
It is a fact that we “cannot cease from sin” (2Pet. 2:14). That is the very essence of bondage, after all. Somebody needs to stop our runaway trains! I think that, because the universe was created open-ended so that we could choose, we are designed, as sovereign, to orient to the locus of whatever paradigm we are currently choosing to operate in: to literally re-adjust to wherever we are. Home IS where we already find our hearts; even if they are in the mud. I think because we were designed to operate from within the paradigm, we have an infinite capacity to adjust to choices: we instantly start defending them and acting as if they were true (confirmation bias). This is great when we are free to choose righteousness, but what about the places where we are not free from the bondage of sin to choose it? Who shall deliver us from this body of death? This runaway train to nowhere? Even on runaway trains, our compasses of paradigm inexorably re-adjust to wherever we find ourselves, and we start to defend it – to make excuses and explanations – to conform to our location; but when that location is Babylon, we have a problem.
I think the curses – the wilderness of our lives – are hateful to us primarily because we did not choose them: they go directly against our sense of sovereignty. I think we were designed to hate what we do not want, and who wants disaster, anyway? But how else is God going to give us a new reason to choose against where we are? It can get hard to continue to find a reason to stay in Babylon if everything there is turned against us and none of our choices seem to work: this is the definition of the wilderness, after all, is it not? Where the corner grocery of life won’t accept our credit card and the hospitals never heard of our disease and public transport doesn’t go to our side of town any more and society thinks we have a communicable illness? Alone in Babylon. No reasons left to stay here any more must mean the reasons to be elsewhere must be increasing! Disaster that we did not choose can also give us new motivations that are from beyond us, too. Here, at the end of all things, we can finally find ourselves free (of the paradigm of the desire for Babylon) to desire our true home again: free of the enthrallment of sin to make the choices necessary to pack up and get the heaven out of Dodge.
Get up to heaven and get out of Dodge I like that. Someone just sent me a post that enlighten me to the thought God’s anger is not his primary action… Love is.! With that in mind. The Lord is always attempting to get me back to the right path. The reason I say attempts, is because sometimes I may not get the message. Because I want things my way but as I’ve learned his will and his ways, he is faithful to put someone else in my past that I can help. Someone that I can give to, someone I can pray for. Someone that can help me find God’s will again. God’s Community is a gracious thing, it is by his grace that we live move and have our being. And I can save that is true for me as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. Thanks. Skip, and all you other guys you are a blessing to our lives.
Brother Brett, You wrote: “The Lord is always attempting to get me back to the right path”. One of the main tenants of Process Theology, which I am now learning and leaning toward, is the idea that God is not Omniscient, but so interconnected with everyone and everything that He ‘knows’ what is in our best interest and then woos us (never coercing) with what He (aka LOVE) believes is our best choice at our achieving shalom (wholeness, peace, fullfillment) and oneness with Him, ourselves and others.
Of course, we rarely take His advise and find ourselves at the receiving end of our own “kick against the pricks”. But our failure (or success) only leads Him to reevaluate (process) our options and choose what He ‘understands’ is our new best option in which to woo us towards our best outcome. Of course, circumstances are always in flux and people do change, therefore His best choice (opinion?) for us is never firm, but fluid. Everything is by chance, not Divine fiat. It is, as Laurita would describe, an intimate dance between two partners to the music of life.
(For the record I am no philosopher, theologian or scholar and I don’t consider myself qualified to recommend Process Philosophy or Theology to anyone, but I am only sharing what I find to be helpful to my understanding of these complex issues. I am in process… of becoming human at the very least. If you want to research this topic further I recommend you check out Homebrewed Christianity which is at https://trippfuller dot com ).
Process Theology, as I understand it, does not oppose God’s omniscience. It just doesn’t view omniscience in the classical way, as fixed and exhaustive knowledge. In Process Theology, God’s knowledge is contingent. It is exhaustive in the sense that all possibilities are known, but this is not the same as knowing them as actualities. This was the point of my doctoral work 35 years ago.
Thank you so much for clarifying that. Have you done other words for the day in regards to this? I agree in essence to what Michael said but it’s a little threatening to hear that God is not omniscient. But then, that’s my junk! Once again, I think man has sought to put God in a box so that we can “understand” Him!! God is never cornered !
I like that about Him! Thanks for shepherding us.
Once again, it’s not that God isn’t omniscient. Rather, it’s that the definition of omniscience depends on a Greek idea of perfection (via Parmenides). God is omniscient, but omniscience only means “all that can be known,” not “everything is if it were actual.” Aquinas formulated the classic definition of omniscience in his work and virtually all theology followed this view rather than the Hebraic/Semitic view. The history and arguments are complicated but, from my perspective, what we need is a BIBLICAL definition of the term rather than a philosophical one.
Love it! I think that the burning bush in the hot sands of the wilderness needs to be embraced like the fire of the furnace and the fire from the altar, burn baby burn, as a living sacrifice. Like the Lord was so consumed with His Love for us and the Father that He gave Himself up in full obedience even unto death. His Love for us consumed Him, now as a living sacrifice we must enter into that consuming fire of love for Him and let it consume us. That is so sweet an aroma to the Lord and when we speak His Word backed words out of that Fire, He backs it up with His power to fulfill it. He breathes in our breath as it comes up and breaths out the “everything” to fulfill it.
I admire your courage!
Thank you Skip for this daily dose of love and thought-provoking material, I know it’s a lot of work but it is so needed. Hope you are settling into your new home and enjoying all that great food over there.