Where We Cry

“He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of a wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He guarded him as the pupil of His eye.” Deuteronomy 32:10

Where We Cry

Howling waste – Have you ever been in the wilderness at night?  Far from the man-made delusions of protective cities, scary things move in the dark.  Once in awhile you can see eyes just outside the firelight circle.  But you will never be more frightened than when you hear the howl.  The cry of an animal brings all of our insufficiency into focus.  It is the cry that confirms we don’t belong in this place.

Howling (yelel) is connected with tohu, a word that gives us an even more disturbing picture.  Tohu is the word for chaos, confusion and meaninglessness.  You will find it in Genesis 1:2 (“without form”).  It is primeval disorder.  There is something sinister about this kind of existence.  And if you look deeply enough into your own soul, you will find just this kind of place; a place where the malevolent beast within howls its cry of destruction.

God finds us in just this place.  At the end of ourselves, confused, disordered, frightened, feeling the claws of our own inner destruction pawing at the inside, screaming to get out.  This is the real desert – the emptiness that knows no boundaries.  Inner space.  This is the place where God rescues me because no one else can, not even my own soul.  I hear my own unutterable cry of terror and discover that it is not too much for God to listen to.  Everything in me wants to run away, until God puts His hand on my shoulder and whispers those words I have longed to hear in my howling waste:  “I love you.”

If you have never been to the howling waste, you are either blessed or cursed.  If you have never been there because God spared you from knowing the depth of your desperation, you are blessed.  But if you have never been there because you have been running for protection ever since you heard that first howl, you are pitifully cursed.  The howl will never end until it encounters the God who lives in the waste places.  Until the word of God comes in the desert, the howl holds us in fear.

If you hear the silence howling, stop running.  God knows that sound too.