A few days ago during my devotions I was listening to some worship music.\u00a0 I was really struggling to find a song that truly represented my heart as I wanted to worship God.\u00a0 I quickly prayed in my head asking God to show me a song that represented where my heart was at with God. I was clicking thru my songs and came across one called \u201cHosea\u201d by Luke Wood.\u00a0 I was curious to see what it was about\u2026 and God answered my prayer! The chorus says, \u201cWe\u2019re going back to the wilderness where it all began, back to the place where We first met. We\u2019re going back to the wilderness where it all began, but this time it ends in the Garden of Eden.\u201d Wow\u2026 So my heart is in the wilderness. Very true. I know this is where I am, but I had always viewed this as a very negative thing.\u00a0 I figured it was my fault that I was here because I had some terrible lesson to learn because there\u2019s an area of sin that God wants to deal with.\u00a0 While that may be true at times, God revealed to me a much grander and more beautiful purpose for the wilderness.\u00a0 It is the place where intimacy begins. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m still chewing on this\u2026 so here are some more thoughts. The song has 2 different pre-choruses that show us God\u2019s view of what comes out of that time in the wilderness. \u201cThough you forget Me I will not forget you. Though you forget Me I will yet allure you.\u201d This is such a cool promise.\u00a0 We despise the wilderness, but God has fond memories of it.\u00a0 That was the place that we first recognized our need for Him.\u00a0 We finally reached out to Him and He cherishes that place.\u00a0 I picture God\u2019s office, and it has pictures of all of His children. In the background of each one of those pictures is our wilderness.<\/p>\n
Continuing on with the lyrics, \u201cI said long ago that I would hedge up your way with those thorns on every side and now you wonder why you feel the pain? I am building all around you a wall of resistance but it’s unto your redemption and it comes through true repentance.\u201d This is where the correction of the wilderness comes in.\u00a0 He promised to keep us on that path of Life. He hedged the way with thorns so that we would know when we are going astray.\u00a0 He builds a wall around us that forces us back into the wilderness.\u00a0 But it is for our redemption, which only comes thru true repentance.\u00a0 That\u2019s a whole blog in itself, but for now all I can say is that this is powerful stuff!<\/p>\n
\u201cAs in the days of your youth once again you will sing. Like when I brought you out of Egypt and carried you on eagles\u2019 wings.\u201d Once again, this speaks to me of the fondness with which God looks at our time in the wilderness.\u00a0 Remember when you used to sing in wilderness? When all that was needed to sing was the thrill and awe of God\u2019s goodness and beauty? What happened? We get to the point where even in the comfort of the lush valley we can\u2019t sing anymore because just one thing isn\u2019t quite right? I don\u2019t know what the \u201cone thing\u201d might be for you, but I am guilty of this.\u00a0 Sometimes it\u2019s just because I\u2019m tired\u2026 or I get frustrated that I\u2019m here <strong>again<\/strong>\u2026 or this person over here just offended me\u2026 or my mind is off thinking about the things I would rather be doing in this temporary world other than worshipping my eternal Creator and Savior\u2026 That last point, well, whew! That\u2019s disturbing to even put down here, but lamentably it\u2019s the truth of my situation sometimes. Sometimes if even a whiff of the wilderness comes wafting into my precious valley I\u2019ll start kicking and screaming like a spoiled brat and refuse to sing. (By \u201csing\u201d I\u2019m more referring to the attitude of my heart in worship towards God. Sometimes my lips will sing\u2026 but my heart will be far from Him, if I\u2019m honest with you. Isaiah 29:13)<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the latter days you will fear the Lord and tremble at My goodness. Who is this leaning on her beloved coming from the wilderness?\u201d This is a promise, along with the quote in the previous paragraph is a promise of where I will be after this time in the wilderness: Singing from my heart in love with my Beloved, carried on the eagle\u2019s wings of His Spirit, fearing the Lord (thus growing in wisdom – Proverbs 1:7), trembling at the awe of the Father\u2019s goodness, and resting and being supported by our Beloved, coming up out of the wilderness!<\/p>\n
What an amazing purpose and passion God has for the wilderness!<\/p>\n
Something to note is this, most of this blog comes from me going back and looking at the lyrics and really pondering this point.\u00a0 To be completely honest, I was a little thick headed when I first listened and thought, \u201cCool, I\u2019m in the wilderness\u2026\u201d but didn\u2019t really even begin to see God\u2019s view of it until I listened to the song right above it in my iTunes.<\/p>\n
The song was called \u201cBeautiful Mercy\u201d by Laura Hackett.\u00a0 This is the Chorus and Bridge: \u201cAnd He\u2019s brought me to the wilderness where I will learn to sing. And He lets me know my barrenness so I will learn to lean. Beautiful Mercy, do what you have to do. Jealous Lover, do what you have to do (to bring forth love in me).\u201d<\/p>\n
Both of the songs talked about leaning on our Beloved.\u00a0 This is out of Song of Solomon 8:5 \u201cWho is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?\u201d I looked up \u201cleaning\u201d which comes from a Hebrew root word \u201cto support oneself, to rest upon\u201d. When we go thru the wilderness times, we learn to support ourselves on Jesus and rest upon Him. We fully recognize our need for Him and we love Him for it.\u00a0 The chorus above from Laura Hackett says \u201cHe lets me know my barrenness so I will learn to lean.\u201d He doesn\u2019t force us to be barren, He shows us how barren we are apart from Him.\u00a0 He uses the wilderness to reveal this truth to us. Hmmm\u2026<\/p>\n
And referring back to my thoughts earlier on \u201csinging\u201d (more that attitude of my heart towards the wilderness) the 2nd Bridge to \u201cBeautiful Mercy\u201d says, \u201cSo I will sing\u2026 Even in my barrenness\u2026 Even in this brokenness\u2026Even in the loneliness.\u201d No matter what place I am in, I want to have a heart of worship and a passion for intimacy. No matter what circumstances and challenges I am facing I want to choose to sing. I want to learn to embrace the wilderness seasons and view them with the same fondness that the Father does. The wilderness experience is the beginning of intimacy, and the furtherance of it each time we visit the wilderness.<\/p>\n
No matter what it takes, I want to grow in intimacy with my Father. As John Mark McMillan says, \u201cI don\u2019t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about\u2026 How He loves us\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
“Hosea” by Luke Wood:<\/p>\n
[podcast]http:\/\/www.lovesicklives.com\/content\/audio\/LukeWood-Hosea.mp3[\/podcast]<\/p>\n
“Beautiful Mercy” by Laura Hackett:<\/p>\n
[podcast]http:\/\/www.lovesicklives.com\/content\/audio\/LauraHackett-BeautifulMercy.mp3[\/podcast]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few days ago during my devotions I was listening to some worship music.\u00a0 I was really struggling to find a song that truly represented my heart as I wanted to worship God.\u00a0 I quickly prayed in my head asking God to show me a song that represented where my heart was at with God. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-christian-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/curtisfox.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/curtisfox.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/curtisfox.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curtisfox.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curtisfox.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/curtisfox.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/curtisfox.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curtisfox.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curtisfox.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}