The Wilderness

I have been reading for over a year now Elisabeth Elliot's devotional A Lamp Unto My Feet (The Bible's Light for Your Daily Path). It is amazing to me how many times the Lord has used these writings to encourage, refresh or even challenge me. Right now I feel like I am walking through a wilderness- a wilderness of the physical, emotional and spiritual. But even today God used this to encourage my heart and remind me that His Plan is always perfect.

Wastelands
by Elisabeth Elliot

    "There are dry, fruitless, lonely places in each of our lives, where we seem to travel alone, sometimes feeling as though we must surely have lost our way. What am I doing here? How did this happen? Lord, get me out of this!
    He does not get us out. Not when we ask for it, at any rate, because it was He all along who brought us to this place. He has been here before-it is no wilderness to Him, and He walks with us. There are things to be seen and learned in these apparent wastelands that cannot be seen and learned in the city-in places of comfort, convenience and company.
   God does not intend to make it no wasteland. He intends, rather, to keep us-to hold us with His strength, to sustain us with His sure words-in a place where there is nothing else we can count on.

God did not guide them by the road towards the Philistines, although that was the shortest;... God made them go round by way of the wilderness towards the Red Sea. (Exodus 13:17-18)


Imagine what Israel, and all of us who worship Israel's God, would have missed if they had gone by the short route-the thrilling story of the deliverance from Egypt's chariots when the sea rolled back. Let's not ask for shortcuts. Let's keep alert for the wonders our Guide will show us in the wilderness."