Hello, everyone! I'm in California right now, helping
my sister prepare for her wedding. And we're up to 50
members. Hello, new members!

I pray you enjoy this devotional. It came at just the
right time for me! I've commented at the end.


Wastelands

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 the 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 which 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" (Ex 13:17,18 NEB). 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 was
rolled back.

Let's not ask for shortcuts. Let's keep alert for the
wonders our Guide will show us in the wilderness.

My comments:
Wow, wow, wow! Boy, have I felt as though I'm in the
wilderness lately. Sometimes I feel as if God is so
far away that I doubt if He cares anymore. Imagine
how the Israelites felt! It should have taken them 2
weeks to get through the desert, but instead, God lead
them on a path that took 40 years!

How many of us feel that way about our eating
disorders? I myself have been trying to recover for 9
years, and I'm still not quite there yet. How many
times have you said to God: "Can't you just take this
away from me?" But instead, He leads us through the
wilderness because He's trying to teach us something,
show us a different path - and really get it out of
our systems!

Yet, we still question what God is doing, and
sometimes doubt if He's there at all. Remember
Isaiah's words to God, "As the heavens are higher than
the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:9 We often
don't know what God is doing; we can't fathom how He's
going to work to get us out of this mess. But imagine
the day when we can look back and see the path that
God has brought us through - according to His perfect
plan. That day will come.

"Hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for
what he already has?" Romans 8:24

Love, BK

=====
"No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his
love has been brought to full expression through us." 1 John 4:12

www.brennakate.com
www.livejournal.com/~brennakate

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