A desert place

April 7, 2006

By Lisa Washington

It was almost a year since I lost my job as a direct result of the witness of my life for Christ. My resumes, phone calls and interviews had all come up empty.

The financial strain was becoming a crisis in our family. Things were already tense before I lost my job. My oldest child is totally disabled and requires continual nursing care in our home. My husband had not been serving God for years. Another child was far away at college.

Feeling lonely and abandoned, I drove to a park at the foot of the mountains encircling our city. I found a hiking trail I knew well.

There hadn’t been any rain in our part of the state for months. The ground was so dry my shoes kicked up puffs of dirt. As I struggled with the problems in my life, my spirit felt as parched and dusty as the desert under my feet. Help was near for the dried out earth — the air was heavy with an impending storm and black clouds piled up on each other, threatening a downpour at any minute. I wondered how much longer I had to wait for rain from heaven to be poured on my soul.

The sun peeked from under the clouds as it set, turning them fiery orange with purple streaks in the western sky as it threw shadow and color on the mountains in the east. I sat on a bench beside the trail and watched the beautiful living mural unfold.

My heart cried out to the Lord with words I had said to Him so many times: “God, why? Why my child, my home, my finances? Why now? I want to serve You, Lord, but nothing happens like it’s supposed to. Where are You? Don’t You care?”

The beautiful sunset God had painted faded away. Night crept across the sky. The mountains disappeared in the darkness. The storm clouds hid the moon and stars, and the dim lights located along the walking path were no help in illuminating the scenery that had been so spectacular just half an hour earlier. Distracted from my problems, I thought about how quickly and completely our whole view of the world could change.

All of a sudden, as He so often does, the Lord taught me a lesson by reminding me of His Word. A psalm studied earlier that week resonated in my heart: “Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep” (Psalm 36:5,6, NIV).

I finally made the spiritual connection. I could not see the heavens or the mountains because they were hidden by the heavy darkness. I certainly could never see the “great deep” of the ocean from my desert home.

But I knew that the stars and moon twinkled and shone on the other side of those storm clouds, and I knew that the mountains would be there in the morning when I looked out my window. I knew that all the seas of the Earth would continue to operate the same way they have for centuries, whether I ever saw them myself again or not.

Just as the darkness of night and storm hid the heavens and mountains from my physical eyes, the dark, heavy burdens of my circumstances tried to hide what I knew in my heart to be true beyond any doubt: God’s love and faithfulness reach farther than I can ever understand or imagine.

His righteousness and justice are mightier and more powerful than anything I can ever know on this Earth. They are the very essence of who He is (Psalm 89:14). He will never abandon or fail me (Deuteronomy 31:6). God will keep His promises and “guard what I have entrusted to Him” (2 Timothy 1:12).

The parched desert can’t receive the rain without the clouds that block out the sky. Sometimes our faith can get dry and brittle too, from waiting for what seems to be a long time for God’s response to our need. Sometimes when we expect His answer to be a refreshing shower of blessing, we get a storm of hurricane proportions instead.

But the clouds of trouble that block our view of the Father enable us to grow stronger in our knowledge that He is to be believed and trusted, whether we can see what He’s doing or not.

The apostle Peter tells us that the trials (storms) of our lives come “so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed,” (1 Peter 1:7).

Our God is always within and beyond any storm cloud, and He is ready to pour out His grace, mercy and help when we look to Him and wait for Him to quench our every thirst.

Lisa Washington attends Copper Mountain Assembly of God in Tucson, Ariz. (William T. Seale, pastor).