Wilderness depths

 Luke 4:1-13

For Lent we are to be in the wilderness, or to look at the places of wilderness in our own lives. This is not some guided trail snail walk though which takes us onto the fringe and makes us wonder about creation. This is deeper into the heart of the woods. 

Anyone gone into the depths of the woods where you don't encounter anyone for the whole time you are there. When I was a kid my dad had a camp up in the Haynesville woods or T2R3. We would look for nature and there were times when we weren't allowed to go alone to the outhouse and dad or mom would carry the pistol with them. We would learn how to find our way if we got lost. Look at the partridge dust beds, find the salt lick where the deer were, talk to beavers or gorbies, or just wait for dad to start the fire in the morning so we could climb out of bed and be warm. 

Being deep in that woods was scary at times. My brother cut his foot one time and there was no running to the doctors to get it stitched. There was one morning I woke to see a bear staring in the window. There were times the racoons got into the cooler stored at the spring and took all the eggs and bacon. The scents were wonderful, the night sky - gorgeous and mysterious, and we were always guided here by my dads experience. 

This is the wilderness we are invited to during Lent. Sometimes with our easy answers and antidotes we can forget that the wilderness is harsh. We are not without a guide though. During our wilderness journeys it is important to look at the scriptures. To find the ones which resonate and guide us deeper into our own experience. The thing is God is showing us the way.  

There may be places where we grumble like the Hebrew people because we feel as though there is not enough. Not enough resources, not enough to eat, not enough of our own stuff yet it is God's abundance which gets us through. Or we remember the better times, back there when we were someplace else, but were they really the best or is it just our memory which makes it so? Or we forget God because we feel as though God is not really that close, God has forgotten us, and so we create a better idol of our own making and litter the wilderness with our golden calves. 

Going into the wilderness leads us somewhere deeper. Where we realize God has been there on the journey. We just had to remember those times and connect more deeply to the words of our faith. This is what it means to remember at the altar this morning. We remember who and what we wer
e and what we have become through Christ. Because it is in going to the wilderness that we find who we have become. 

Let us take those steps of faith. Let us remember the scripture which leads us through. And take the steps we need to in order to see our own journey in the wilderness. Because it is not in avoiding the journey that we reap the most reward, but in discovering our own inward compass which strengthens us toward the wilderness ahead.