The Voices I Hear In The Wilderness

When all the world is right and filled with light life swirls round and round about me. There is no time to stop and take note of all that is going on. I am caught up and filled with the music of the dance of life. But then suddenly the music stops the light turns to darkness and I am lead into the wilderness.

In the wilderness there is a deep silence. In the silence there is time to think, there is time to reflect. My enemy comes into this barren wasteland to fill it with accusations. "Do you see your failure? Do you see how you have hurt the ones you love? You are inadequate, you have no hope!" In this desolate place I can see what I am shown. I see the truth that I have failed, I have missed to mark. What I thought was a masterpiece I now see for what it really is just scribbles on a page. In my attempt to escape the grasp of my enemy who tell me I have no hope I cry out, "Where does my hope come from?"

At first I only hear a whisper but it is enough to break the hold my enemy has on my heart. "I am your hope, I am your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.(Isaiah 44:24) Though you have failed I have not." These words are whispered to me in the night but they are enough to silence my enemy.

Again I hear the words of my Redeemer but this time it is no longer in a whisper. This time the words are given in command and in a promise. "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wastelands."( Isaiah 43:18,19)

Lord, You form the light and create the darkness. You are Lord when all the world seems right and filled with light and laughter but You are also Lord when darkness comes and I am led into the wilderness. When my heart fills crushed within me and I am made aware of all my faults and failures by Your mercy let me put my hand into the hand of my Redeemer and turn a deaf ear to the one who says I have no hope.