Last night I was chatting with one of the girls on the team that is in our guesthouse this week. She was asking me a few questions- challenging questions the type of questions that if I'm honest I've been avoiding for some time. That's when it came, the particular question I've been asking myself for months "So what do you think you will be doing after this?"
"Woah," I thought, "I just met you.. Should I really share this with you?" However, something in my spirit told me to share so as I slowly answered and the words that were coming out of my mouth were surprising even to me. There mingled with the unknown the Lord was allowing me to have confidence in him and his plan beyond anything I could dream up or "figure out" before heading home, and that's the most comforting place I've been in a long time.
It's funny when we take our eyes off our "goals" and look at the Maker we can see from such a different perspective. My heart was so happy when she admonished the faith it took to not yet know but to follow, because something flowed from that as well something I haven't been able to place into words. I simply replied "that's the Life he calls us to, do we every truly know what's next anyway?"
The unknown, the road less traveled and I will gladly take it. I would much rather take the road that few have traveled down a narrow path and be guided by the good Shepard into the unknown with a future in the new Eden than a well marked path of control and worldly appeal that many have walked because that lover is so far less.
The lover of the world is far less wild.
That lover screams for attention in the worst ways-
In your Identity, sexuality, control, pride, and the list continues
That lover steals and will comfort you into believing YOU are at the center.
That lover will lie.
If a lover lies is it really a lover anyway?
My lover may leave me in a desert place for a season, but I know I am not alone.
My lover may give me trials but he will not let me face them without HIS strength.
My lover greets me with the most all enticing love song to worship him- and that I will do.
Why do we settle for lovers less wild?
Because we know not of what wilderness symbolizes. We don't know the wild beauty.
I remember going to the zoo when I was in elementary school. The animals behind those bars were pathetic to me. Sure it was cool to see the lions and tigers and such but because they were trapped- they were no longer wild, striping them of most of their beauty. The animals are certainly still wild creatures however far less wild. It's in them to be wild but they can't live out their wildness without a wilderness to be lost in as a wild creature.
Oh how it's the same with our souls.We are wild creatures craving wilderness, wide open spaces, change, transformation, progress, healing to be at our wildest. It's beyond our imagination to have a wild heart and have it be caged like the tiger at the zoo.
Sadly, many of us step into the cadge so willingly. Falling after lovers so less wild. We cage ourselves and a tragedy is on stage - the wild at heart lose their will to be wild because we are becoming tame to the world. We are being tamed by the promise of security in ourselves -Filled with our pride in ourselves- such as at a job that offers a lifestyle we always thought was the "goal." Somehow it doesn't fulfill though so we move on to the false wilderness of spirits and drink with friends to fill that wild aching inside of us, but that pushes us down too. When that doesn't work we simply sit in front of our screens... All of them Computer, TV, Iphone, Ipad, Kindle, and become tame as we play candy crush and think if we can just beat level 46 we would make it. Oh how easily we are tamed.
Like a tiger born in captivity, we are so unapt to walk in the wilderness because we have been fed and didn't need to hunt for our every meal. It was provided. We lost some of our innate aggression in our wild nature. Why search for something or use our wildness to fight for a meal when we know one is coming to the cage in it's timely routine everyday. We walk about our days in captivity and somehow think this life is the wilderness. We think we have been doing ourselves a favor and saving ourselves from dangers that come from living a wild life.
Our souls crave a wild love story to captivate our heart. One that we can turn over in our minds and never get tired of. That's the Gospel it holds our every wild desire within it. It's the story that when believed in a life- transforms every nook and cranny and lets the wild creature venture outside the cage for once because we are learning that the wilderness was made for us and our hearts for it. It's the daily reality of grace that keeps us running wild at the thought of a way out of the cage of captivity to sin for sinners. We were made to let the wild heart of God capture his creatures wandering hearts.
We were not created to be caged in our own "wilderness" and call it wild - having lovers and things of the world strip us of our wild nature. Slowly it happens,
"Fixing our eyes on Jesus the founder and perfecter of Faith , For the Joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning it's shame, and sat down at the right hand of the Father" Hebrews 12:2
Oh that Lion, he will continue to roar and roam the very depths of your heart to capture it for his own. No wilderness is too wide that you cannot be touched by his loving call.
I am reminded that we need wilderness seasons because it calls out the wild nature in us. It awakens some of the natural call of our wild Lover. Somehow we think it will be best to get out of the wilderness as fast as possible- get to dry land, to civilization, to simply "be okay" again. What is really beautiful to me is to be awakened to the reality that those wilderness seasons in our lives are calling us to a romance- one of sacred proportions.
It's a calling to wild hearts to be awakened and to trust the wild Love of a savior and rely on the instincts that the Holy spirit has placed inside this wild heart of ours. Following hard after the wild will- going places we never thought we would go, doing things so far from our imagination. None of that would be possible if we didn't have the wilderness. Many people question God in times of "lost wondering" in the desert of wilderness... I want to call you to look further. See his wild love is in search of not your comfort but rather in search of a wild and willing heart after his very will. Oh what beauty can be found even in our painful seasons if we remember God is at work on a chase ahead of us in the wilderness to win over our hearts. So hold tight brothers and sisters when you face the unknown, the wide open spaces with no explanation, the wilderness is a call to the wild. It's a call to the wild at heart. It's a call to his very heart that he wants you to be able to run and be free. It's a call to wild lovers in a sacred romance.
I challenge you, In the wilderness...
Be wild.
"A voice is calling, "Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. "Let every valley be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; And let the rough ground become a plain, And the rugged terrain a broad valley; Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, And all flesh will see it together; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken." Isaiah 40"3-5
