Do you know what the word “Exodus” means?

It means “departure”. I was thinking about this as I was reading about “Diamonds in the Desert” from Bruce Wilkerson’s “The Dream Giver” and it had me thinking of times in our lives when our Father seems to be so far away. Life just becomes a stand still.

Maybe you woke up one morning and the light seems to have dulled in your life and things went from, great to bad. Instead of things going smoothly and that drive out of your driveway started smooth, you started the vehicle, only for it to stuttered and stop and then while waiting for the vehicle to be fixed, you spill coffee on that brand new outfit you just wore that day and let’s not start with the realization that after the bill is paid, you only have enough for groceries and maybe, just maybe to cover two bills, if you can arrange some type of alternate payment plan for the first bill.

Whew.

What a day.

Or a week.

Maybe it’s been a month for you?

I re-read Exodus and listen how everyone started off on their departure with their spirits on high and all these big plans, and YES!, this was the day, so many had dreamed of to…”What are we doing?”, “We had it so well, in afterthought,” and “Manna for dinner again??”.

⁶ In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, (1 Peter 1:6, New King James Version)

I have had days, even weeks, when I have had to deal personally with what some people call the “Mean Girls”. You know. The moms who didn’t realize high school was over with and think nothing of gossipping about you behind your back or openly in front of you and seem to go out of your way to make your life miserable.

Or maybe it is the neighbor that as much as you try to get along, seems to never have a good word to say and no matter what you say or do, they have something negative to say about you, because you don’t live up to their wants or conditions.

Or maybe its a co-worker who seem to go out of their way to make your job just a little bit harder or seem to want to steal the attention away from you and what you do and focus it on them.

Or the family member who just can’t let go of being so critical and can’t be appease.

Or maybe. You’re just having a really bad day or week and can’t really put a finger on what it is that is bothering you but just that…you don’t really feel like life is going that smooth right now.

⁴ “ Behold the proud,

His soul is not upright in him;

But the just shall live by his faith.

(Habakkuk 2:4, New King James Version)

We all are going to have deserts in our lives. There are going to be times we will feel like we are in a wasteland and no matter what we do, everything, or something isn’t working, but it’s times like that, that we need to pick up His Word and read Exodus, Joshua and Psalms and discovered, God is not going to ever leave us alone or abandon us, or maybe, we are just needing to step back and see things not through our eyes and wants and desires, but see what it is that He sees and maybe we have missed or overseen.

Something that I’m discovering and slowly,extremely slowly, learning is that Wastelands….Wastelands are needed in our lives so that we—-you….me…all of us…can be prepared, reshaped and ready to be used by Him.

It means, abandoning our desire to grab the steering wheel and take control but know that is time to just sit back and trust Him and allow Him to do what He is needing to do, to prepare us, to shape what needs to be shape and allow things to work so it will work to His glory and never ours.

Imagine if Moses assistant, Joshua, became impatient and told Moses everything he was doing wrong and just went off on his own instead of being patient and allowing our Father to do what He needed to do.

Things might be different.

It boils down to this.

Our Father leaves us diamonds in the wasteland for us to discover on our journey.

Some maybe so tiny that we miss them because we are distracted and maybe panicking.

Or so large that we just stand there.

In awe.

Our jaws dropping thinking, “No way”.

I think often….we miss those diamonds though.

It’s usually not till after the fact we look back and go “Oh I see them now” and see what it was that our Heavenly Father was and is doing in our lives and the lives of others.

Sometimes, we may be so blinded we still miss seeing them.

⁴ But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. (James 1:4, New King James Version)

I joke with my hubby about the importance of patience.

How many of us, in the heat of the moment, said or did things we can’t take back and no we can’t take back, or just plain give up and dont’ bother to look back.

In this case, rice.

Anyone with a garbage disposal knows you don’t pour half a gallon of rice, uncook, down the disposal.

Unfortunately my husband didn’t know that or take the time to ask me what do to with the rice but instead, pour it down the garbage disposal by method of assumption.

And ran the water.

And water and uncook rice expands and clogs the garbage disposal that even using a plunger doesn’t work.Yes….a lot of work.

Sometimes when we are upset or in a Wasteland, it’s easy to do things or say things that we end up regretting. We can do two things from that point.

Allow pride to get the better of us and burn the bridges and never look back, or in the case of Wastelands….go through the desert, endure, and continue to seek Him, work with and in and through Him.

Not give up.

Not say, too bad and walk off.

But to deal and work through and allow Him to be the mechanism to help us get to the other side, refined, developed and prepared in His will and way, not ours.

When the Israelites first went through the Promised Land, noticed how they argued, bickered and complained. After forty years of wandering, tested by the Wasteland and guided by our Father, a new and stronger nation emerged from what had first entered.

⁴ But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. (James 1:4, New King James Version)

When the wastelands of our lives happens and unfortunately it will happen in our lives; He is and will see us through and we must trust Him; But in the process, we mustn’t give up, we mustn’t give in to the temptation to allow the lies to get the better of us or to try and give up.

Find ways to invite healthy change first and foremost in and through our Heavenly Father and see His side and view of how things are and work through that Wasteland, that way.

It’s so easy to reject, to give up, to be or feel beat down, but He is not going to give up on us and we shouldn’t give up on Him. No matter how painful it may feel or what is the use, continue forward in and through our Heavenly Father.

⁴ “ Behold the proud,

His soul is not upright in him;

But the just shall live by his faith.

(Habakkuk 2:4, New King James Version)

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