#INTO THE WILDERNESS HOW TO#
#INTO THE WILDERNESS FULL#

We can sing, “Hallelujah! All I have is Christ!” with both hands lifted, while the tendrils of our heart slowly wrap themselves around a marriage, a friendship, or a career - scarcely recognizable, almost incurable. It is frighteningly easy to give lip service to God while our hearts are lost in his gifts - and to trick even ourselves in the process. For all the beauty of the promised land’s hills and forests, they offer dozens of hideouts for our idols. He does so for at least two reasons.įirst, the wilderness exposes what’s inside these chests of ours like little else does.

#INTO THE WILDERNESS HOW TO#

Often, God teaches us how to handle his gifts rightly by first withholding them. They would need to learn how to look around at a wasteland of sand, and sing for joy to the one who gives and takes away.

#INTO THE WILDERNESS FULL#

If Israel was ever going to stand in the promised land, with their hands full of bread, and say, “I know how to abound,” they would first need to walk through the wilderness, with God’s word in their hearts, and say, “I know how to be brought low” (Philippians 4:12). Life comes from the words of the living God - words better than gold, sweeter than honey, more nourishing than Canaan’s best wheat (Psalm 19:10). Life - true, deep, abundant life - does not come from bread, or from any of God’s other gifts. But when Israel was in the wilderness, the giver of bread took away bread so that Israel might know where life comes from.

(Deuteronomy 8:3)īread is another one of earth’s simple pleasures, a kindness from God meant to “strengthen man’s heart” (Psalm 104:15). He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. But before they did, Moses pressed the lesson of the manna down into their hearts: Israel stood on the edge of the Jordan with their backs to the wilderness, about to trade manna for milk and honey. Not by Bread Aloneįorty years had passed since God stretched his arm over Egypt. In moments like these, it is one of God’s severe mercies to deal with us as he dealt with Israel, and to send us into the wilderness. “Desires for other things” begin to choke the word (Mark 4:19). We eat and eat, and gradually neglect the host. Without care, we feast on the abundance of God’s house and forget that it is his house. God’s ocean of gifts is meant for swimming.īut the simple pleasures of earth are never completely safe in the hands of sinners - even redeemed ones. When Paul says that God “richly provides us with everything to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17), he really means enjoy. A satisfying career, a healthy body, a best friend, a fulfilling marriage, and every other good gift comes down from the Father of lights and, like the heavens themselves, declares something of God’s glory (James 1:17 Psalm 19:1). “The simple pleasures of earth” are good things, of course. “For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable” ( A Hunger for God, 18). “The most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth,” John Piper writes. Few things threaten our faith more than when a good gift of God, beautiful and innocent in itself, slowly becomes necessary for our happiness.

Into the wilderness