Abandonment

Several years ago, our family believed God was calling us from our place of comfort and security and into a season of transition. We never imagined going from this beautiful place and ending up in the wilderness. Each day, we would cry out to the Lord and wonder what went wrong. We knew without a single ounce of doubt that we had heard His voice, so why were we here? Where did the road veer off? How had we gotten so far off track we couldn’t see The Light any longer?

It was here where we would quiet our hearts and realize, when you are looking for a map, sometimes the answer is God saying, “Take My hand. I’m going to guide you through this.”

As I was preparing for this, God brought me to the story of Hagar. She found herself in this season not once, but twice. She had run away and began to cry out and plead for the answers she so desperately desired. He would show her the well, and still, with Hagar in this wilderness place, she would tell God, “I see the God who sees me.” With the gift of desperation, she prayed, knowing, “God, You are all I have, but You are all I need.”

Other places in the Bible will show us many times where God was right there in the midst of the very people who loved Him and worshiped Him, but they were blind to His presence.

• Jacob – “I was unaware He was there.”
• Mary – thought he was the gardener.
• The two people walking to Emmaus.
• Samuel thought He was Eli.

We as Christians need to develop a healthy habit of listening to God’s voice before we get to this place of feeling left or forsaken in a place of wilderness. So, when we are there, His voice is what we hear, and others we do not harken to. He can use anything to speak to you. I mean, in the Bible, he used a donkey, a tumbleweed, fire……It’s just about finding yourself present in His presence.

Psalm 94:19 says, “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.”

The God of Heaven whom we serve is always there to console us, and in that consolation, the outcome is Joy. Unspeakable, everlasting, pure…..JOY.

Can we just breathe that in for a minute? God, hold me in this moment. Allow me to be as Hosea and say with my lips, “I came out of the wilderness leaning on my beloved.”

When I look back at our time where so many things were uncertain, I think of how God sees from the beginning to the end, and even when we can’t see ourselves, we have to know that He is sovereign. We have to trust Him with every step. God, You are good in my good and You are equally good in my suffering. The wilderness is a revealing season. What have I trained for? What have I been taught my whole life? When the darkness comes, I have the light deep inside of me, to speak it from my mouth and light up my surroundings. As a mother, I have deep rooted instincts to protect my children and do what is necessary when they cry out for help. So does my heavenly father who promised to NEVER leave me.

We want to thank Ashton Riddle for sharing this post.