A Wilderness.

How many times have you stood in a place feeling neglected, abandoned, or to put it a little less dramatically, overlooked? A place where you might have asked God, where is He or why is this happening to you. I believe it is a place we all have been if we are not already currently standing there.

John the Baptist lived all of his days on earth in such a wilderness. Yet, he did not cry out to God asking Him, where He was. Instead, John stood in his wilderness with Holy expectation.

Mark 1:3–5 ”The voice of one (John) crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His path’s straight. John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey..”

In the above passage we are introduced to John the baptist. A wilderness-guy without a doubt. He had a radical kind of faith; a faith that leaves you shaken and wide-eyed, for truly it is the power of the Spirit of God. He ate bugs, wore animal skins, and talked of what none knew. Every time I think of John, I think of Tarzan walking around with a Bible and preaching the gospel. I am sure many thought he was a lunatic or on something. Yet, John I presume had not a single care of what others thought, for he knew his calling (Luke 1:77). He worked for God’s approval and not man. He sought the Lord’s Voice and was not distracted by the many others. He is a sure, fire example of what it looks like to deny self and to bear a cross before there even was a cross. Now, I do not think the Lord is calling us all to go find a wilderness and live the same, yet I do believe as followers of Christ our hearts should be sold out to Jesus in the same manner as John’s. This is my prayer over my own life: That my days are lived to just make straight the way to Jesus. It is not easy. It is wilderness. It is a daily death of self. Tears fill my eyes because John the baptist spent every day making straight the way, yet had a pretty tragic story here on earth.

Sheila Walsh writes in The Shelter of God’s Promises, “I can’t read the story of this last brutal phase in John’s life without weeping. He lived his whole life denying himself any sort of luxury or indulgence and had to place his head on a block with only one companion at his side, the executioner, without seeing what the road home through Christ was going to look like.”

John was executed before Jesus made it to the cross. Now, the scriptures do not tell us much of John’s thoughts or feelings at this time. Yet, he was human just as you and I. He did question if Jesus was the Messiah as he sat in prison (Luke 7:19-20). I imagine that he was thinking, if you are the Messiah when will you rescue me from Herod. Yet, God was calling John home. Regardless, John the Baptist stood in his wilderness with Holy-expectation. He chose to trust in a God that maybe he did not understand, but He knew. He knew He was the way, and He made it straight.

John 1:23 ”I am a mere voice of one crying in the wilderness, Making straight the way of the Lord.”

I cannot wait to see John the Baptist leaping around heaven with such tremendous joy for he tasted the goodness he patiently waited on.

Jesus, I pray to be but a mere voice making straight the way to You. In all seasons of this life may my soul be singing You praise. For, this life is not my own, and the best is yet to come. I pray we take the truth of John the Baptist and stand in each of our wildernesses with Holy expectation because the beauty is You are not a God who promises no wilderness; You are a God that meets us in the wilderness.

Your Beloved, Kel