Roam the Desert or Change – Our Choice
We all have deserts to travel, the question I keep asking myself is, “am I in one now?”
As I read the Bible I see many men who wandered through their deserts, some were literal others were just like the ones that you and I travel. When I read about these men I see the map used to help us leave our deserts. The strange thing, however, is that even with a map, those deserts seem to continue. In that case, we (I) have to ask, do I really want to leave the desert or is this where I am most comfortable? Personally I think we tend to get comfortable in our deserts and even though we don’t like the misery associated with it, we trust the consistency of it.
The reason this is on my mind is that in a few days I will lead a team session for one of my clients. This session is all about change. Having done this talk and others like it numerous times and having experienced the things I talk about personally, I have come to believe that we (I am included in that we) sometimes prefer our misery (our desert) to the prospect of a different misery. We get comfortable in our victim status. Think for a moment about all of the changes that Job (Bible) experienced. I can honestly say that I don’t know if “I” could have survived all that he survived let alone be thankful. Job had every reason in the world to wander in his desert for the rest of his life. He had every reason to claim victimhood and ask others around him to feel sorry for him. However, that is not what Job did, instead, he offered us a model for how we should deal with change and work through, and out of, our deserts.
Job praised God and accepted without having to have knowledge as to why. “Why” is important to us, but in most cases, it is a “nice to have,” not a “must-have.” Most times we simply have to choose to have faith that God is in the details and that we can trust Him. We can choose God or choose our desert, we can choose a desert or we can choose a journey with our savior. Sometimes we see that God uses change to get try and get us out of our deserts, but we still have to choose.
Either way, we have a choice to make every day. So the question I ask is “what is your choice going to be?” It’s pretty simple, just not easy!