Wastelands

Elizabeth Elliot Devotional

There are dry, fruitless, lonely places in each
of our lives, where we seem to travel alone,
sometimes feeling as though we must surely have
lost the way. What am I doing here? How did this
happen? Lord, get me out of this!

He does not get us out. Not when we ask for it,
at any rate, because it was He all along who
brought us to this place. He has been here
before--it is no wilderness to Him, and He walks
with us. There are things to be seen and learned
in these apparent wastelands which cannot be seen
and learned in the "city"--in places of comfort,
convenience, and company.

God does not intend to make it no wasteland. He
intends rather to keep us--to hold us with his
strength, to sustain us with his sure words--in a
place where there is nothing else we can count
on.

"God did not guide them by the road towards the
Philistines, although that was the shortest...God
made them go round by way of the wilderness
towards the Red Sea" (Ex 13:17,18 NEB).

Imagine what Israel and all of us who worship
Israel's God would have missed if they had gone
by the short route--the thrilling story of the
deliverance from Egypt's chariots when the sea
was rolled back. Let's not ask for shortcuts.
Let's keep alert for the wonders our Guide will
show us in the wilderness.