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God of your wilderness

Ok so just to be clear I was a fearless child and teenager, I spent more time playing in trees, climbing in them and building in them. I loved the woods,  there was just something calming about being in the forest surrounded by trees.  I live in Ohio  Valley so there are hills all around and I grew up in the valley.  Now there are plains in Ohio and I hate them, they are boring to look at and although some people like them, I do not.  Their is nothing to climb, nothing to hide in, nothing to lose yourself in. This is how I see my spiritual wilderness, flat land that I can see the same thing far away, there's nothing different as far as the eye can see.  Our season of wilderness is boring, quiet, and frustrating.  It was in the season of the wilderness that God cut away a whole generation to die in the desert.  How does this apply?  Well here it is: Your deliverance came from God and had more to do with Him than you.  Your wilderness comes from you and has more to do with You than Him.  WOW right?  Now stick with me please as I take you on a very brief journey.  
Delivered but not Set Free
  Wilderness seems like a waiting season, its the in between the delivering and the possessing, and we don’t like how long this takes.  You see the Israelites were delivered but the definitely weren’t free.  When God wasn’t performing miracles or they couldn’t get that instant gratification they were seeking something to fill the void.  Moses was up on the mountain seeking God’s laws and they were down at the bottom partying it up and bowing down to a fake God because they could see it and made them feel good.   As a child I was exasperated with the children of Israel, seriously get it together!! But as an adult it is so easy to fall into this trap.

Walking through my wilderness

As I began to really dive in and  I saw myself in the children of Israel.  I would get bored when God was taking too long.  I wanted Him to move quickly, and give me emotional support and when He didn’t on my time frame,  I tried to fill that void with something else.  This became a pattern in my life and I was, like the children of Israel, Forever on a yo yo relationship with God. I had to take a really good look in the mirror and assess who I was and who I wanted to be.  Finally, I made my decision to walk through, to no longer try to fill the void that God was trying to fill.  I surrendered and from there I started to learn who He was to me, not what He was doing for me.  I didn’t like the process and it hurt being awake, I had to use spiritual muscles that I hadn’t used in a long time. It also also a shock to realize how weak I had gotten, but I kept getting back up each and every time I fell and slowly ,who God was, changed for me.  He no longer was the God of my childhood bible stories but he was the Lord of my life, my shelter.  David said in Psalms 18: 19 “He brought me out to a spacious place, He rescued me BECAUSE He delighted in me.”  I was overwhelmed when I read this verse.  The God of the mountain, the very creator of the universe delights in me.  I was able to walk through my wilderness wearing the Love of my father.  I could go through anything and keep moving forward, I could face any giant and keep pressing forward, BECAUSE I am His and He loves me.  How I saw God was refracted back at how I saw myself.  It wasn’t until I saw him as my BECAUSE that I could get up and move forward confident in who I was in Him.  So let me leave you with this question: Who is God to you, and who are you to Him?  -Selah

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