GRACE IN THE WILDERNESS

"Thus says the LORD: The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness..." Jeremiah 31:2 (ESV).

I've never considered the wilderness as a place to find grace, but the Old and New Testament proclaim that the God of the garden is also the God of the wilderness. The wilderness experiences of Hagar, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Paul, and Christ declare the sovereign and providential love of our most high God.

In the context of Jeremiah 31:2, Judah sits exiled in Babylon. Jeremiah is reminding them of God's love and faithfulness by recounting the exodus from Egypt through the desert to the land of Canaan. That generation survived Pharaoh's sword, but because of disobedience and lack of faith, God forced them to wander forty years in the desert and die off. In their place God raised a new generation of Israelites that was ready - spiritually & physically - to conquer Canaan.

Several points of interest came to me as I meditated on finding "grace in the wilderness," and I hope they will be helpful to you as well.

First of all, the wilderness was a place of mortification and sanctification. The old unbelieving generation of Israel gradually died off day by day; in a sense it was excised from the new generation and enabled the new to grow stronger day by day. So we must daily mortify - put to death - the members of our body so that the inner man is renewed and growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must constantly, "...by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body" and "..die to sin and live to righteousness." The more we put to death the "old man" and put on the "new man," the more we -- "created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" -- will become like Him.

Second, the wilderness was a place of restoration. God's call for Israel's repentance and restoration reverberates throughout the book of Jeremiah. In 2:2, He tells Israel:

I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride, how you followed
Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.

The same theme is echoed in Hosea 2:14-16:

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and
bring her into the wilderness, and speak
speak tenderly to her.

And there I will give her vineyards and
make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days
of her youth, as at the time when she came
out of the land of Egypt.

And in that day, declares the LORD, you
will call me 'My Husband,' and no longer
will you call me 'My Baal.'

These verses recall Israel's early relationship with the Lord in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt as pure and devoted, like a bride's with her groom. Jeremiah's generation forgot what God had done for their forefathers; how He had drawn them out of slavery with cords of love and hidden them under the shadow of His mighty hand. Likewise, we sometimes forget that His love never ceases, His mercies never end, and that His faithfulness is great. We forget our deliverance from the domain of darkness and being brought into the the kingdom of His light, and that we were once dead but now made alive in Christ. God may put us into a wilderness to restore us again unto Himself. He can "allure us" into such a place so that He can "speak tenderly" and bring us back to our first love. Song of Solomon 8:5 beautifully expresses the fullness and intimacy that exists when we are in fellowship with our King:

Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?

What more could we desire than to daily commune with Him who desires His children to lean on His bosom and to sit in His shadow -- renewed and sustained by the sweet fruit of His grace?

Third, the wilderness was a temporary home and not a permanent abode. The pace and stress of modern living causes us to forget that we're nothing more than short-term tenants on planet earth. You only have to visit a cemetery to realize that "Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not" (Job 14:1,2). We're like flowers who flourish in early spring but fade with the heat of summer; we're like shadows that lengthen as the day grows longer until they are swallowed up by the night -- so our lives will be swallowed up by the lengthening years. The new generation of Israel witnessed this first-hand as they watched the previous one die off in the wilderness.

Despite it's natural beauty, this world is a "wilderness" when compared to the heavenlies that await us, even though we have not seen them - all we have is what we read in holy scripture. So it was with Israel; they had no idea what Canaan looked like, only stories from those who remembered the report of the men sent in to spy out the land. Remember that for Christians this world is a howling wasteland filled with wolves, jackals, and lions waiting to devour us. But we must take heart, because in the middle of this wilderness we "find grace" because Christ has planted within each one of us a garden of grace, and we take that garden with us wherever we go. But we must tend our garden so that our fellowship with Christ will be stronger, more intimate, and more fragrant. If we fail, we will not enjoy the cool, refreshing breeze of the Spirit, fertile soil, or abundant fruit; rather, we will posess a garden with fallow ground, empty vines, and hot desert winds. May the Holy Spirit blow upon our garden of grace so those around us will smell the fragrance of our fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and glorify His precious name.