Lent started yesterday and the word “wilderness” has been popping up everywhere—in devotionals, Instagram feeds and my own vocabulary. In years past when stormy skies have cleared, it’s been far too easy to ride the Cloud Nine Express from Christmas to Easter, and barely glance out the window at the plea to embrace the solidarity with discomfort these 40 days ask of me.
This year it’s so much easier to get my head into this solemn season of wilderness when it’s my current reality. Once again my physical symptoms have reared their ugly head, as crushing pain, headaches and chronic infections have been consuming me, and my schedule is full of doctor’s appointments, therapies, scans, procedures and upcoming surgeries. Maladies I am far too familiar with, and had hoped with every ounce of me would by now be a distant memory. But there is also an acute difference I’ve been noticing that separates this year from my other wilderness seasons: I am anticipating the awaiting oasis even though I see no sign of it on the bleak and barren horizon. And through dry, parched lips, I am claiming the nourishment, renewal and splendor I will find when I drink in its waters. I am looking ahead with such steadfast assurance, because when I glance back I see instance after instance of exactly that throughout my entire life.
Never once have a walked through a valley where I wasn’t met by a sunrise, ushering in a new dawn of beauty, strength, wisdom and resilience borne from that trek through the depths.
Isaiah 40 is a classic wilderness passage and one of those chapters I’ve heard proclaimed from pulpits throughout my entire life. I could probably quote it in my sleep. Except in hearing it, the punctuation was all wrong. I had alway understood the wilderness as if it were giving the passage its geographical context: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness…prepare the way for the LORD.”
But punctuation changes everything, and the passage actually reads as follows:
“A voice of one calling:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together.’” (vs 1-5)
Isaiah is stating that it is in the very midst of the arduous, exhausting, at time hopeless and aimless, wresting in the wild—that the Lord Almighty wants to meet us. And in anticipation of His incomprehensible glory that will be revealed, our wandering suddenly finds intention, and our feet feel rooted, as we find solid footing for our summit climb. The treacherous path before our feet is cleared, as our suffering meets Divine purpose.
God doesn’t ask us to get our life together before He shows up. Instead He chooses to meet us in the very middle of our wilderness, as it’s there that He promises to reveal His glory and His sacred intention amidst our suffering.
So as we start this Lenten season, I encourage you to embrace the areas of discomfort in your life as opportunities for Divine encounter, and as reminders of the love and sacrifice of the cross.
As Ann Voskamp so beautifully says,
In the name of the only one who has ever loved you to death and back to the fullest life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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