Surviving the desert, you are not alone.

Last time I wrote a bit about experiencing a time in my life when G-d seemed very distant. His felt presence seemed far off, His scripture seemed meaningless, even obedience to His commands seemed fruitless.

I admit to not having some five step plan for when you experience this, I don’t think there is one. Five step plans are easy, and G-ds plan is not.

So if I have nothing to offer, no plan why do I keep writting about this? Well as my friend Amy wrote in reply to my last blog, ‘your not alone’. The fact is there is strength in numbers.

The desert has a feeling of loneless like no other place. The desert is a place where feeling alone in a crowd is normal. Whether you do have a good group of friends to fellowship with or not the desert will make you feel disconnected and distant from everyone.

A person who is in the desert will find no fellowship, no relief, no comfort from even the most well meaning person who has not experienced the desert himself. The desert is not a place that book smarts gives you the skills to survive in, it is experience alone that can help you. And in knowing this take comfort in what Amy told me, ‘You are not alone’.

You may not find desert dwellers in your time and place but take comfort in knowing those who have gone before you. Moses wandered the desert for 40 years, Elijah wandered it alone for 3 years, David was in it for 10 until he became King, and perhaps the one I have found most comforting is Job, whose unprovoked desert seemed dryer then anyone I have heard.

The ‘Greats’ of our time have experienced it as well, Martin Luther, C.S. Lewis, William Wilberforce, Francis Chan…

You may feel alone… but you are not.
You may feel alone… but you are not the first to wander this land, in that, you must take comfort. A great multitude before you have chartered this seemingly G-d forsaken land and entered into a promised land greater then their minds had ever imagined.

Keep on trucking.