Life in the Desert: Not Wanting This Journey, But Here It Is

People say all the time, "Life is a journey," or "I am on a journey," and this sounds good.  The image that comes to mind is you are on a road of your own choosing, and despite a rock or two in your path, you walk on, aware that you have not reached your destination.

But what if the journey you are on is not of your own choosing?  The road that you now walk is not familiar and each day is more like a strenuous hike then a gentle amble. 

Then it hits you:  How did I get on this road in the first place?  Maybe I chose to walk it initially, but then it became something I had not planned on, and now each mile is a drudge. 

I am personally in the desert.  I went from teaching literature and writing at a community college to a full time caretaker after my husband suffered a stroke and a heart attack ten years ago. My life changed in a New Your minute. So did his. 

His road became my road. After seven years, I went back to work, but the stress of teaching high school and continuing to caretake wore me down.  Modern teachers do a lot of caretaking of students--their needs, their mental health, their unhappy home life and their parents, who are either absent from their child's education (until they get a bad grade and it must be the teacher's fault, right?) or they come in like a Mongolian hoard or your administrators do, wanting to placate a parent who has spent all morning in their office. 

So, I am at home full time.  Just recently, my husband had open-heart surgery.  It was a long procedure, and everything went well. But his road is my road, and it will be a long one as he recovers.  

I want to explore desert life in light of the Israelites' sojourn. It struck me that they never asked to be slaves in Egypt.  In Genesis 42, we learn that a famine in Canaan, where Jacob and his sons lived, drove  Jacob to send his sons down to Egypt to buy food. 

Legitimate reason, right?  Why not?  

We are starving, there is food available for sale to us down south, so let's go!

Joseph is in charge and his brothers don't recognize him and he tests them by demanding that they bring their brother back, to prove they are not spies. Sometimes the road has obstacles and these sons of Jacob (and brothers to Joseph) hit theirs, but the famine drove them to do what Joseph requested. They arrive at Joseph's court and having proven themselves not to be spies, Joseph invited them to eat, but "They served him by himself, the brothers by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because Egyptians could not eat with Hebrews, for that is detestable to Egyptians." (Gen. 43:32). 

Whoops! Another obstacle.

Oh great. I can smell the food, the table's set and now these Egyptians have some stupid custom that we cannot eat with them. Oh, wait a minute. OK, we get to eat. So what if it's in another room. We will get to eat!

But this obstacle can be overcome. It's a short detour, but not a lengthy, soul-sucking one. That comes later when a Pharaoh rises to power and didn't know Joseph (or was either probably unaware or didn't care about all he had done for Egypt) and saw the children of Jacob as a threat, because of their very numbers.  He embarked on a murderous program of their baby boys.  He enslaved the people. 

Not a road of their choosing.  Nor, did they count on the length of stay: 400 years in Egypt.  What started out as a journey to survive a famine became enslavement.  The people, starting with Joseph and Jacob, had no idea where this journey would take them, and how it would turn out for everyone. 

But that's the broad sweep.  How about everyday life for the Hebrew salves?

Hey!  I heard that we were free once, and didn't have to work day after day in the desert sun.  What happened?

Joseph did right by us. We had food and what we needed and Goshen is a nice place to live.  What happened?

The Pharoah has set up a plan to kill our baby boys!  WHAT HAPPENED?

All good questions, but that is truly the motto of the desert:  "What happened?"  Life as I know it has changed so much that my life is now almost unrecognizable.  All that I took my identity from is gone.  All that I saw as part of my life as faded into view and now I face the uncertainty of wide open desert spaces with rocks, wind and emptiness.

What happened?

Come, walk with me in the desert.  You may have just left one and you are trying to process the experience; you may be entering one, and wondering what the future holds or you may be in yet another one, wondering if there is any other kind of terrain in your world.  This might be your first sojourn and you are looking for a map.

Join me. If you notice that once the Israelites went into the desert, they went together--in a community.  God does not have you out there alone.

Even Jesus, who entered the desert, went out with His Father and the Holy Spirit, and the angels ministered to Him when His time out there was done.  

Come. 

No one asks to go in to the desert, but we can choose, even if we are broken and weary, how we respond. 

Come.