By Ryan Matthews
It seems like everywhere we look these days, something or someone is in transition. Churches are trying to find their next pastor or vision, moms are figuring out life with littles or without, organizations are working with fewer staff, and folks are trying to find jobs. We are surrounded by the ambiguity of what is to come.
If you haven’t already noticed, we aren’t comfortable with this ambiguity. In fact, we will do just about anything to avoid the ambiguity of transition. Here in the West, we pride ourselves on knowing, being right, and forecasting, and this ambiguity pulls at the core of who we have become. We are a people who know.
One of my favorite stories about the ambiguity of transition begins with the nation of Israel. The people of Israel found themselves enslaved to the Egyptians one day and, the next, off to journey into the wilderness. They left the lush Nile gardens of Egypt for the wasteland of the wilderness. They became a people of the wilderness, unsure of where they would find food, water, or safety, let alone freedom. They became a people who didn’t know what story they belonged to. They became a people who longed to go back to the security of the garden.
Yet, out of God’s kindness and mercy, the people of Israel learned what it means to remain in the ambiguity of the wilderness. We, too, live in the wilderness. We, too, are a people of the wilderness, and yet, theGood Shepherd brings us to green pastures.
The theme of the wilderness, which runs through the entire Hebrew Bible, all the way up to Jesus going out into the wilderness several times, has had me wrestling with the version of Christianity I felt I was supposed to believe.
See, I believed we were supposed to try to get back to a garden. The garden is the goal. The garden means everything is okay again. The garden, for me, represented going somewhere, doing something (my favorite catchphrase: “being on mission”). The garden was finally getting the right pastor or being independent.
Yet, when we look at the story of the wilderness for Israel in their first testings, found in Exodus 13:17–17:7, we find that God’s intent for us in the wilderness has little to do with going back to a garden, going to the Promised Land, or finding our Moses.
The ultimate desire of God is union with Him, regardless of garden or wilderness. Deuteronomy 8:3, which is echoed again by Jesus in His wilderness, gets at the heart of this: “That man does not live on bread alone but by every word that comes from Yahweh.”
Regardless of whether you are in a garden or the wilderness, our longing remains the same: that we live by the word of Yahweh and desire to grow in union with Him.
Manna is not what sustains us. Our version of Moses is not what sustains us. Our church is not what sustains us. What sustains us is the Good Shepherd.
The hope we find in the wilderness is rooted in this: the presence of God, our Good Shepherd, is our companion. Whether it be in green pastures or valleys of death, a kind, merciful, good, and compassionate God is what sustains me when I thirst, provides me with an oasis in dry land, and gives me rest in the wilderness. That gives me hope.
The questions we ask ourselves now shift to an invitation to do deeper work with that God. When I find myself thirsty, who or what am I attaching myself to? What have I used to survive that is no longer allowing me to be free? These invitations draw us closer and closer to that Good Shepherd.
I wonder, for many of us as we journey through the wilderness together, what God is inviting us to. Just remember, the same God who led Israel in the wilderness is accompanying you in yours.