Stripped: Trusting God When He Allows Others to Hurt Youনমুনা

SURVIVING THE DESERT

How do we survive the desert, then? How do we keep walking through the unplanned unknown? Desert plants and wildlife have special ways to survive without regular rainfall and in harsh desert conditions. The secret is how they store water for periods of no rain. Some desert trees have long taproots that grow deep into the ground reaching for water sources.

Others have multiple shallow roots to extract as much moisture as they can, while others have thickened roots, tubers, or bulbs that store food and water underground. Some desert plants remain hidden as seeds in the ground and germinate once rain falls.

Camels hold fat reserves in their humps that can be broken down into food, and can go on for weeks after drinking many gallons of water. Essentially, you survive the desert by digging deep roots and storing food and water. You keep feeding from the Word of God and coming to the source of water. Those deposits or reserves will bear fruit in time.

You survive the desert by relying on the right tools and supplies. Boats can be wonderful vehicles, but we can all agree that they are useless in the desert. To travel through the desert, you need camels (or those cool dune buggies), proper clothing, sunglasses, food, water, and a guide who knows where they’re going and how to get there.

The same applies for our emotional and spiritual deserts. We need the right tools. We need to fill our reserves, we need a water source. The Lord provides these for us through His Word, the Holy Spirit, and through the encouragement of others who’ve crossed deserts before and can help us get to the other side. And He gives us the tool of worship.

RAIN SHADOW DESERTS

Rain shadow deserts are deserts that occur when large mountains block the path of rain-bearing wind. The wind is pushed up by the mountain and cools as it rises, causing a drop in temperature that releases rain from the clouds. The wind continues over the mountain without rain, creating the exact opposite alongside the desert: a rainforest.

I think rain shadow deserts contain a hidden lesson. When we sing in the driest and darkest nights, God moves. Our praise becomes a mountain that provokes rainfall. When we praise, He showers His grace upon us, creating refreshing rainforests right alongside our deserts.

We don’t need to die of thirst in the desert. We can transform them into rainforests when we worship Him. He is moved by our praise and delivers us in miraculous ways.

This is beautifully displayed in Acts chapter 16. Paul and Silas—beloved missionaries and believers who were stripped, beaten, flogged, and jailed. Although their bodies were broken, they chose to pray and sing in their midnight hour. God used that opportunity to display His power, deliver them, and bring salvation to the jailer and his family, who were baptized that same night!

In the midst of our affliction, when we choose to worship, we set the stage for God to do powerful things. He moves in unpredictable ways when we worship as a sacrifice of obedience.

When we learn to live in the desert relying solely on His grace and presence, something happens to our faith. We might feel it is as tiny as a mustard seed, but that is all we need to pray as boldly as Joshua, because we’ve witnessed that nothing is impossible for our God.

There’s an incredible amount of power in our choices. Joseph’s brothers chose to do what they did. Joseph chose to break patterns and opt for a life of righteousness. And God worked things out in order to fulfill His promise to Abraham.

We have a huge advantage over Joseph: we know how the story ends and what the impact of his choices meant for his family and the nation of Israel. Joseph was clueless about the life that lay ahead for him in Egypt. But his mind was made up, he was all in.

He chose righteousness over misery.

He chose freedom over bitterness.

He chose to trust when everything was uncertain.

We don’t know what the impact of our story is going to be. We can’t see the full picture of what God is doing in us and what He will do through us. But when we decide to go all in, we can be confident God will work in our favor, even if we have to wait a long time to see it. Our brokenness has the possibility of becoming the biggest blessing in our life.

To meditate:

• Have you been in the desert? If so, how long? What do you think is keeping you there?
• What do you think about the God of the desert? Are you pursuing Him or are you rejecting Him?
• Do you need to incorporate more worship in your life?
• What determines your satisfaction?
• What other life lessons can you find in rain shadow deserts?
• What desert survival tools have you implemented or can implement into your story?