Can You Enter the Wilderness...?

God never changes.

Truth never changes.

Our ability to perceive God's Truth certainly changes ...!

Our lives, indeed the account of scripture, reveals a progressive journey of understanding into truth -- AS we can bear it.

Our ability to comprehend incomprehensible Truth must be slowly revealed to us so that we can tolerate the transition. For many of us, the transition is gut-wrenchingly painful.

Perhaps, the more we ache for the Truth, the more painful the process ... the more we swallowed-whole the propaganda of men (cleverly disguised as the truth of God), the more painful the process of letting go ... firing the old god, and allowing the new God to reign in us, is simple, but not always easy.

For me, the deep and dark point of the process occurred when I studied "what the hell is hell" ... I was tormented in my mind, "in hell" in my thinking, for a couple of years. The confusion, the despair, the darkness of my thinking, while in transition, the double-mindedness of going back and forth from the old strongholds to the new possibilities was beyond-stressful, beyond wrenching. But, when I emerged on the other side (not all at once, but in a slow dawning), I grew to be deeply convinced of the truth of what God had revealed to me. The confusion and vacillating between old and new began to lift ... I was ready to embrace that which He'd been showing me ... even if I lost much that went with the old way of life (friends, ministry positions, relationships, reputation).

Because of who I am, or perhaps how I'm led, I've shared this journey every step of the way, transparently ... not holding back. I've opened myself up to much criticism, alarm, and malignment. But I've also opened myself up to being connected with the most marvelous people I never knew were "out there" ...! They were previously hidden from me by the labels I'd put on them: "new-agers," "heretics," "pagans," "mystics," "THEM." I also found myself being a catalyst for others to come out of the shadows of secret-doubting ... as SO very many were suffering as I had been, trying to believe the traditions of man, but no longer able to squelch the Spirit's drawing them into the Light, which they feared was the dreaded slippery slope...! I've come to believe that hearts all over the planet are aching to know more, to experience more, for they've dreamt of more, or even tasted more. I wasn't alone in my "insanity," in my "blasphemy"... people everywhere are coming to the end of the old way of thinking, and were starved for the revelation of the "much more" that Jesus promised ...

Many are called, and few choose to take this path ... this narrow path less-traveled. Most will never leave the security of tradition - the safety of all they think they know (& must strive to maintain). Many prefer the security of the familiar, even if it's choking the life out of them (especially if they believe God *wants* them to thus suffer!). But others cannot resist ... their hearts ache, and their souls are starved, and their hunger will not be squelched.

And so, they are willing to plunge forward, into parts-unknown, into the wilderness, the desert.

Bear in mind, if you have taken this plunge, or if you are being called to do so, that in the desert, the Israelites lived in tents -- temporary shelters (houses symbolize our understanding, our "covering"). Bear in mind that the promised land is symbolic of the fullness of God's truth -- our heaven on earth. New heaven and new earth, wherein God reigns within. Where/when we see as God sees... and are known as we are known.

While in the desert of transition, of transformation, we are to stay open and receptive to the Spirit of Truth who is leading us ... like a pillar of fire by night, and a cloud by day. Our desire, our temptation, is to set up a permanent camp, to put down roots, but if we do so, if we insist on building a monument to what we think we know at any given point (no matter how compelling that revelation of truth may be), we miss the leading of the Spirit. The Spirit of God, within us, will reveal in a progressive way, and it may not make sense along the way ... we must have courage and trust in this process. We hear His Voice, and do not heed the voice of the stranger, nor the wolf, but only the Master within.

It's unsettling, this wilderness experience ... and we may enter it more than once, depending on what must be dismantled. But we can trust that we are there for a good purpose -- to enable us to see God as He is, and ourselves in His image ... and thus learn who we are, why we are here, and what this Abundant Life is really all about ...

Can you imagine anything more important...?

Shalom, Dena