Author: Sodwana Bay

I know a girl who aspired to become a classical pianist. She had natural talent. She spent hours in practice. Then one night a man broke into her house and attacked her with a knife, badly disfiguring her hands. Today her piano sits silent. I know a man who had a promising career in publishing. He had a gift for words. He was rising through the ranks. Then a religious cult persuaded him to quit his job to preach in the streets because the world would soon end. The world didn’t end. And the publishing world never opened to him again. I know men and women who dream of marrying but remain single. A friend of mine dreamed of her brother’s recovery from cancer, but that dream was laid to rest last August. To dream is to be human, but to be human in this world is to experience a dream broken. And as the years stretch on with our dreams unfulfilled, it can feel like we’re lost in the wilderness. Broken Dreams in the Wilderness During this season of Lent we remember Jesus’ 40 days in the desert – itself a re-enactment of the Jews’ 40 years in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-7; Deuteronomy 8:1-9). Both experiences hold a profound lesson about recovering from broken dreams with God. To the Jews the wilderness was a place of trial – a wasteland of confusion where one walked in circles, a desert of frustration where one’s dream was denied. After their momentous liberation from Egyptian slavery and their divine encounter on Mount Sinai, the Jews had set out for a Promised Land of plenty. But what started as adventure soon became adversity, with an 11-day trek becoming 40 years of wandering (Exodus 12:31-20:21; Numbers 10-36). The Jews felt vulnerable in the wilderness. It was a place of dry stones and fruitless ground, blazing sun and weariness. It was a place of wild animals, circling vultures and shadowy forces that whispered in the winds. It was a place of seeking and searching, ever on the move and never content. The wilderness was a place of restlessness. The Jews felt tempted in the wilderness – tempted to renounce their God, or at least question his goodness; tempted to scuttle back to the world that enslaved them. When Jesus the Jew had his own wilderness experience he too heard the Tempter’s voice – to turn the stones around him into tasty bread, misusing his power to fulfil hunger; to leap from the temple and be caught by angels, proving his ‘specialness’ to others, and to bow to the Devil and gain worldly power, avoiding the pain of his future. But the Wilderness is a Place of New Beginnings The wilderness feels like a place of desertion. Our souls are dry, there’s sand in our eyes and we feel vulnerable, tempted and restless. But as the Jews reflected on their wilderness wanderings they saw more in the experience than suffering: As much as the wilderness was a place of vulnerability, it was also a place of provision – with manna and quail and clothes that didn’t wear out coming from God’s hand for their need (Deuteronomy 8:3-4). As much as it was a place of temptation, it was also a place of testing – God testing their hearts to reveal their devotion and teaching their hearts to trust him (Deuteronomy 8:2). And while they felt restless and insecure in the desert place, they end up becoming someone new – God revealing himself as a ‘father’ to them there for the very first time, and describing them as his ‘children’ (Deuteronomy 1:31; 8:5). For as much as the wilderness is a place of trial, it is also a place of transition (Deuteronomy 8:7-9) – where slavery becomes freedom and immaturity becomes wisdom, where our proud demands are humbled and our insecure selves become children of God. In the wilderness we become people we could never have become, and move into the next phase of our lives. After 40 years in the wilderness, the Jews entered their Promised Land. After 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus launched his world-changing mission. An Easter Reflection So, what if this wilderness season of ours – with its silent pianos and lost careers, with its sadness, singleness and loneliness; with its crushing diagnoses and hospital wards and its doubts and tears and brokenness – was leading us to become someone we couldn’t become without its trials and testings? What if God was using it to test our faithfulness to him, and through it affirm us as his ‘child’? What if it was the transition point to a new Promised Land, a new phase of life, a new mission? God has a habit of making the wilderness a place of new beginnings.

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14 When Mary and Joseph were engaged to be wed, something happened that would change their lives completely. Of course, what we often forget is that the impact that Jesus’s arrival would bring had the potential to actually be either completely positive or destructive for the parents-to-be. I can only imagine Mary being told, “I’m going to give you the son of God, and He’s going to be ‘Immanuel’ or a promise to the whole world that God is with us,” and then Mary probably thinking, “Well, that’s great for the world, but what’s going to happen to me?” During this time, premarital pregnancy was not only embarrassing but could also mean the end of a mother and her child’s life. On top of that, all she had to go on was that she was pregnant because the Holy Spirit gave her a child. So aside from being labeled immoral, people could most likely call her crazy. And imagine what Joseph must have been going through as well. His fiancee was pregnant with a child that was not his and the choice to have her stoned or have his name stained forever was in his hands. In all of this, one can only imagine what weight and magnitude the promise of Jesus being “Immanuel” must have been to them. God was not only with the whole world. He was also with Joseph and Mary, and they held on to that every step of the way — when Mary got pregnant, when they had to travel miles on her due date and when they ran out of rooms when she was giving birth. Often, we hear God speak to us that He is Emmanuel, that He is “God with us,” but what does that do to us? Does it just become another name to add to the many sets of names that Jesus is given? Or does it assure us of the character of God, thus giving us the faith to hope and trust that in every situation, God is indeed with us? Life can get a little challenging at times, and the world, our circumstance or even our own minds will tell us that God is nowhere near us, but God made it clear that Jesus is our “Emmanuel.” Just before He was taken to heaven, Jesus gave us the promise that “I will be with you until the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20), solidifying the assurance we have that He is indeed Emmanuel.

Most of us consider ourselves to be generous people. Yes, there’s always a little extra we could give but between our online donations to our Facebook friends’ marathon fundraising pages, our enthusiastic purchase of our colleague’s homemade baked goods at the work charity bake sale and our weekly contribution to the offering at church each Sunday, we’re not doing to badly. Or are we? According to data compiled as a result of the Science of Generosity survey, 45 per cent of Americans gave no money to charity in the past year. Among this 45 per cent are almost 4 in 10 who, in the same survey, said they believed having a generous self identity was important. While the survey doesn’t reflect the charitable attitudes of Americans as a whole, what it does highlight is that we can fundamentally believe in the virtue of giving but it’s something that can take a backseat in our day-to-day lives. Can you remember the last time you gave spontaneously? How about the last time you increased your giving? These Bible verses will help remind us why we need to make being charitable a priority. Psalm 41:1 – Blessed are those who have regard for the weak; the Lord delivers them in times of trouble. Proverbs 19:17 – Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done. Isaiah 58:7 – Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Isaiah 58:10 – And if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like the noonday. Matthew 5:42 – Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Luke 14:13-14 – But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. Luke 21:3-4 – ‘Truly I tell you, he said, ‘this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.’ Hebrews 13:16 – And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.