Life in the Desert

“For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former manner of life…how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; But when God…was pleased to reveal His Son in me...I went away to Arabia” Gal 1:12-16

This morning as I was reading about Paul, I couldn’t help but to notice the Bible’s silence on his time spent in the wilderness of Arabia immediately after he was baptized. He made a point to call out his former life and how he tried to destroy the message instead of spreading it. I love how Paul granted God all the glory for his conversion when he wrote that God was pleased to reveal Christ to him. And then he stated that he left for Arabia. While we know that he grew in understanding of Scripture during time in Arabia, we read nothing that gives a voice to his emotional experience.

For some reason his last sentence haunts me this morning. He lived in a manner contradictory to God’s will by tearing down the message of Christ. He went ‘beyond measure’ to torture and persecute God’s people. So, my heart is heavy for the silence of Paul’s wilderness experience because I know how heavy my heart was when God revealed Himself more deeply to me in 2006. I knew that He forgave me for my former way of life and was pleased to develop me in Christ. But it still was hard with the new understanding of the message as it rubbed up against past decisions I had made.

When we measure our past actions against our present callings there is a great spirit of remorse with which we must wrestle. I imagine that many tears fell from Paul’s eyes over the things that he did prior to Christ indwelling in him. I can hear the echo of his pleas for God to extend forgiveness to him, giving the opportunity to share his new Christ centered life. There was a before and after line drawn in the wilderness sand for him and he would never again be recognized as his former self.

We all enter the wilderness where God Himself opens up our understanding to who we are to be in Christ. It can be heartbreaking work but essential to have that spiritual marker of before and after. We should each be growing in faith, and not doing the same compromising things we used to such as lying, judging, and condemning others. We cannot despise the desert for the desert is where we gain the true message directly from God, not from man. Our deserts seem to always last much too long, but God works His best miracles in the heat. ‘Sometimes God takes His time grooming the very difficult ministry of apostleship. It’s a selfless ministry strewn with hardship, persecution, and loneliness – always having to rely on God for leading and guidance. The desert is a pretty wanton place and no better place to learn survival and develop an intimate relationship with Jesus.’ John Christopher 

Pike, www.readingacts.com. 

God is pleased to reveal everything to each of us, but will we take the time and effort to receive it?