Dying in the Wilderness

Many churches are asking this question. Many Christians are asking this question. It is easy to wonder if God is letting us die in the wilderness. Numbers are declining, churches are closing, costs are going up while offerings are going down. Along with the Israelites, we may be tempted to ask, “Why have you brought us out to die in wilderness?”

And like the Israelites, we easily forget that there was no salvation to be found in Egypt. Rather, the wilderness is precisely where God is calling us to go, so that we might finally be freed to see the new ways in which God is coming to us.

It is hard for us to see that God has not brought us into the wilderness to die, but instead to live. To meet God free from that which holds us back. To be community with only each other to rely on. To discover the new places to which God is calling us.

To finally see a life of freedom in Christ.

God of wilderness, where we would only expect death, you free us for new and wild life. Amen. — EP