The deserts...

The desert

There are times in our lives when we feel or are in the desert...it can look differently for different people, where our individual paths lay...for some, it is actually a desert...dry, barren, hold/cold, desolate...feeling the aloneness, the forsakeness...before salvation or after when we are tested and tried ....before we come to that lush valley of forgiveness, care, provision...

For others, the desert may be amongst people, mounds of paperwork, the daily "grind " of "everydayness"...the multitude of daunting tasks to be completed, parenthood with tiny ones or teens, or health events which leave us feeling deserted by our unhealthiness...

Deserts look differently for each...

I have been contemplating this desert picture...I have been there on numerous occasions, each looking different, but deserts for me...each had a time of feeling adriftness, aloneness, desperation in some, times when scripture was dry and times when I really didn't care for the Word...I wanted back into the lushness of the oasis, I wanted back into the regular world...I wanted what others had...not the desert...

But, in each desert there was an undercurrent of care...I may not have acknowledged it openly, but it was there...under the turmoil, there was an undeniable peace that was steady, unwavering, solid...the Rock...the daily mana...the living Water...

Each desert had and still has lessons to learn...

The following are a few notes on deserts...
The deserts can be signify judgement, provison, growth, renewing ....amongst a few...


Deuteronomy 32:10-12 In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft. The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him.

Ezekiel 20:10-12 Therefore I led them out of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness. I gave them my decrees and made known to them my laws, by which the person who obeys them will live. Also I gave them my Sabbaths as a sign between us, so they would know that I the Lord made them holy.

A place of refuge...provision- David, Elijah, Jesus, Moses, Paul...learning to trust...manna, water in the desert...preparation...learning...

I led you in the desert...

God joins his people in the desert...gives Just enough for the day...when we need it..to know him more intimately...

Jeremiah-talks about the desert

In times of pain, learn to know Him, love him,

Manna, living water, shade,,,In the unknown, he is there..  Through the pain...

Psalm 105:41 He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed like a river in the desert.

Psalm 107:35 He turned the desert into pools of water and the parched ground into flowing springs;

John 7:38-39 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

Isaiah 35 describes the lush desert...

Isaiah 32:1-2 See, a king will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule with justice. Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.

Isaiah 41:18-20 I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set junipers in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Isaiah 48:21 They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and water gushed out.

Real Deserts that various people went through and their meaning...I found these interesting...the meanings and the stories behind them...
Desert of Paran...beauty, glory, ornament.
Desert of Zin...buckler, coldness
Desert if Sinai ....bush, enmity...
Desert of sin...bush
Desert of kedemoth....old age, antiquity..
Desert of ziph....falsehood
Desert of maon.....house, place of sin
Desert of En Gedi...eye
Desert of Edom.....red..
Desert of tekoa...trumpet, that which is confirmed
Desert of Kadesh...holiness
Desert of Judah ...confession, praise of the Lord

Thank YOU for the deserts of life...even when they are the harsher ones, You are with us...bringing us to the desert of Judah-praise of the Lord...and/or Kadesh-your holiness...because your eye is always in us....