Week Six | Emerge Into a New Season

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Wealth of the Wilderness Online Biblical Study
Reading Assignment – Ch. 11 & 12
Hebrew Word of the Week – chadash חָדַשׁ
Listen to the Audio version | Read time 8.5-minutes

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At the time that I write this post, it has been one year, seven months, and four days since the world seemed normal to me.  That night, my boyfriend and I exited the Capitol Theatre after an amazing evening worshipping with Casting Crowns, but my next outing wouldn’t be until March 31st when I became one of the first in our county to be tested for COVID-19.

Somehow it simultaneously feels like decades ago and just last week, and yet we’re nowhere near being out of this global wilderness season.

But in the last year, seven months, and four days, I certainly have developed a new appreciation for spending time in the company of family and friends, and an acute awareness of the luxury of physical touch.

This wilderness that we’re experiencing together, separately, has stretched us in ways unimaginable.  It also has brought us to a place that seems familiar, at least when it comes to wilderness stories.

Embody the Wilderness

The Israelites had been enslaved for 400 years. And in one night, they escaped the only life they’d ever

The Israelites had escaped the oppression of slavery that their people had endured for 400 years in one night, but they also escaped the only life they’d ever known, their own “normal”, as brutal as it was.  But between the Red Sea and the Promised Land, laid a wilderness season that they had to endure.

But in this place, they had to rely on the support and care of God.
And He provided for them daily, even when they refused to trust.

He provided until “the manna stopped” (Joshua 5:12).  

But that wouldn’t be until a new generation was raised up, to embody the wilderness and carry on its residue into the promised land, a land of milk and honey, and a land where “the Promised Land and the fruit it offered had finally been reached” (Pg.138).

During one of my wilderness seasons, I called on God for my daily portion of strength and courage to face the insurmountable trials that lie on the other side of a 45-minute drive.  And though His provision in that time often seemed like a slow trickle compared to the big wet drops that I cried out to Him every morning in the car, looking back, I can see His fingerprints very clearly covering it all.

I wonder if we’ll remember (zakar) to look for Him on the other side of this season of Covid-19?

“Will we remember with gratitude how God led us and brought us through?  Will we remember that He is the source of all our good gifts?  Or will we forget the Lord and believe our blessings are the work of our own hands?”

Rebekah Joy, Pg. 134 of “Wealth of the Wilderness”

Emerge Into a New Season

One thing that is for certain, we’re all wilderness weary.  In many ways, 2021 seems to be harder than 2020.

We thought that January 1 was our Jordan River moment, that we were finally crossing over into the Promised Land.  But we have to remember, the Israelites weren’t handed the Promised Land once on the other side.  They still had to march around fortified Jericho for several days before the walls came down.

“When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city.  They devoted the city to the Lord…”
Joshua 6:20-21a

“Wilderness comes in all forms, and it comes for us all.”
(Pg. 149)

God only knows what we need to walk through or around before we emerge from our global wilderness season.

But you can know for certain, no matter what your wilderness season looks like, He will never leave you there.  He’s always working to bring you home.

“…we are always close to a wilderness season by way of being in one, emerging from one, or heading into one.  This reality affirms the importance of actively choosing postures that position us to receive the wealth God has for us in and through wilderness seasons.“

REBEKAH JOY, Pg. 148, wealth of the wilderness

TODAY WE LEARNED:
1. We’re not a whole lot different than the Israelites in the desert.
2. To embody the wilderness, is to zakar or remember what God has done in and through it.
3. Though the Israelites arrived in the Promised Land, it wasn’t handed to them immediately. It requires work on their part, as it does for us, to emerge from our own wilderness.
4. God doesn’t leave us alone in the wilderness. He is always working to bring us home.

ANSWER THIS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW:
What wilderness residue is left on you from your own experience? How will you use it to embody the wealth that the wilderness offers?