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| In the adversity of the desert God fed Israel manna |
"In the day of prosperity be joyful,
and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the
other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him." --Ecclesiastes 7:14
About ten years ago
I went for a week long camp-out in Death Valley.
Most of you are aware of my opposition to camping (nature is something
we are to subdue, not enjoy) but, overwhelmed with the unhealthy peer pressure
that we all warned our teenagers about, I succumbed, and found myself sleeping
on an air mattress in a tent in an area so remote that our only creature
comfort was that we did have nice toilet paper and a shovel with us. Of course the great surprise of the week was
that the weather was fabulous and from time to time we spotted wildflowers
which apparently bloom once every few years there because it is such a dry
climate. But I noticed something else
that was quite shocking (and no, it wasn't that I was having such a good time
that I suddenly had changed my mind about camping!): there were dead cactuses
everywhere. I thought to myself "aren't
cacti perfectly adapted to this climate and able to store water for long
periods of time?". Yes, on both
counts. But in order for the cactus to
live, it does have to rain sometime in order for it to store the water it needs
to live. Where we were camping it
hadn't rained for quite a few years and so the
ground was so parched, even the cactuses were dying of thirst! While the stark beauty of the desert is
enjoyable, especially when it's cold and rainy here, it is a desert because it
has way too many sunny days.
I see a great life
lesson here because our own lives oscillate between the sunshine and storm,
blessing and adversity. Its not too big
of a reach to say all of us have a preference for things going well for us and
trials kept to a minimum. But too many
days of sunshine tend to create spiritual deserts in us or at the least a
severe sunburn. I am of the mind that
one of the things we all need to learn (and accept) is that adversity has an
important place in God's plan for your life.
We need never seek it out (as we do happiness) for it just naturally
comes as a fruit of living in a broken world full of broken people. To date, I've never met or known anyone who
isn't hurt or hurting about something in their lives. But for some reason when it is not someone
else, but ourselves, we are shocked, even appalled, that God would allow such a
thing to come our way. Such things are there for a good purpose in the end, no matter how hard in the living. For it is usually in the trial of life that faith is both tested and strengthened and proven to be real.
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