Advent Challenge Day 9
Where Are You?
Read Together
Isaiah 35:1-10
Light two candles and say together
Be strong, do not fear; your God will come.
(from Isaiah 35:4)
Reflection
There is a lot of Christmas decoration inspiration on the Internet and in magazines. It doesn't take much effort to see gorgeous colour-coordinated festive spaces highlighting a specific aesthetic. There are never any wildernesses in those carefully curated photographs. Oh, there may be live trees and wreaths and greenery. But they've been watered, tamed, snipped, and placed in the exact right spot. Life is there in that photo, yes. But it is a very specific kind of life (not the kind of life that includes dirty diapers and spilled drinks and holiday hospitality and muddy snowprints and discarded coats). Life in your wilderness may look different, (and maybe your home could be featured in a magazine,) but we all have wildernesses that we keep hidden from our camera lenses and our community.
In the opening lines of Isaiah 35, we see three distinct places mentioned: "wilderness," "dry/parched land," and "desert". I appreciate all these terms because I think all of these places can be realities we've experienced.
Wildernesses are messy and overgrown. The problem in the wilderness may be that there is too much life, too much happening, and you're getting tangled up in it. There is no clear path, and no clear differentiation to know which of the plants growing in this expanse are dangerous and which will nourish you. And there are lots of places for danger to hide. It can be so hard to find your way through a wilderness.
Deserts in our life feel never-ending with no way out and the exhaustion weighs you down. You've seen too many mirages to expect any sign of hope to come through for you. The only signs of life are prickly and don't provide any shelter or sustenance. There's no need for danger to hide because the very place you're in feels like it is trying to destroy you.
Dry/Parched land are places that were once healthy and life-bearing. Think of it like a river that has run dry or a garden in a drought. It can be discouraging and confusing to see something in your life that used to have so much life now seem suddenly dry and empty and dying. You may be able to wait for a time for the rains to come and soak the land once more, but if the dryness lasts too long, it will lead to death. It is not a sustainable place to stay. Being in a dry land could mean that you have a large life-altering decision ahead of you as you discern whether there is the hope of renewed life or if you have to go in search of new fertile ground.
None of these places are easy to be in. Sometimes it feels like every part of our existence is stuck in one of these environments, but sometimes it can seem like only pieces of our lives live out there.
The point of this passage isn't to simply define where we are. We have to keep reading to see the work that God can do in these places. Just note all of these incredibly hopeful transformations that God can bring:
- Gladness
- Rejoicing
- Blossoms and Blooms (beautiful life!)
- Joy
- Glory and Splendor
- Strength to what felt week
- Steadiness to what felt shaky
- Strength to fearful hearts
- A promise of God's nearness
- Saving
- Water gushing in dry-places
- Streams in the desert
- Burning sand that becomes a refreshing pool
- Thirsty ground that becomes a bubbling spring
- A way will be made clear
- No beast will attack
Which one of those do you crave?
Scripture doesn't tell us to first find our way out of these places in order to find God once we reach health again. No! The promise is that God will meet us in these places and transform them for us.
No one's life is as perfect as it appears on Instagram. No one's life is perfect. And that's exactly why Jesus came. He came to enter our deserts, our wildernesses, and our dry-places: to meet us there, and to transform them. Invite Him into yours.
Talk About
- Which of these three environments do you relate to most today? The wilderness, the desert, or the dry-place?
- Find one particular promise listed here in Isaiah and pray for that specifically to be true in your situation.
Pray Together
Lord, we come to you today knowing you find us exactly where we are. Strengthen our feeble hands, steady our knees that give way, give us strength in our hearts with the knowledge that you are coming! Open our eyes and our ears and cause us to jump and shout for joy. Transform the wild, dry, exhausting parts of our lives and make them into places of joy and direction and new life.
Amen.
Put it in Action
Put up some Christmas decorations today! Or, wrap a present. Notice how you aren't changing the location you're in or the present itself, but you’re transforming it to bring hope, peace, and joy. God can do this in our lives too!
To Go Deeper, Read
Psalm 85