Wilderness Times
Find rest today for your soul!
This fake gator resides on our patio as a reminder to stay on the alert for spiritual danger!
In the beginning of the word wilderness, we are exposed to the fact we are going to have a "WILD" time! Ask Jonah when you see him, what his reaction was to Big Fish Wilderness! Bet that was wild!
When I think of the Israelites complaining to Moses and asking where God could possibly be, all the while God was pouring manna down from the skies each day to feed them and placing a pillar of clouds to guide them, I think of how often we grumble.
God had a reason for allowing his favored children to wander around for 40 years and He has purposed in our wilderness times.
Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. Deuteronomy8:2
"I am certain that one of the reasons for the wilderness seasons of our lives is so that we'll start expecting more out of God than ever before. Stop complaining and start asking for and anticipating God's supernatural activity. Expect the unexpected." Priscilla Shirer
The wilderness is our training ground. My heart aches for a dear friend who just saw her son off to Paris Island. He's becoming a marine. She will not see him until August 23rd and by design, he will be a different person. God puts us in boot camp when it becomes necessary to reshape us.
Moses said, This is what the Lord has commanded: "Take and omer of manna and keep it for the generations to come, so they can see the bread I gave you to eat in the wilderness when I brought you out of Egypt." Exodus 16:32
Somehow in my studies of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, I've missed this detail of keeping an omer of manna. Do you think it was set out on the kitchen table as a daily reminder of God's provisions? I'd like to give each of our children a jar and instead of having manna inside, have strips of paper with recollections of wilderness times in our lives and how God shaped us, grew our faith, brought us to love him more deeply and led us out to the other side.
