Wrangler Dani

Writer, editor, wife, adoptive mama and cowgirl living in beautiful Central Oregon.

“Why am I in the effin’ desert?”

I’m in a new Bible study, that I’ve mentioned before. It’s really great. The gals in it are sweet, sincere, funny and wise, and I love seeing girls of all ages come together. Mandy and I go together to it, which rocks because we have the best conversations ever in the parking garage after, and she makes funny faces in the slow “close your eyes and think” parts.

But I have a frustration. It’s not anything to do with these women in particular, but more with Christendom in general, and our unwillingness to discuss, lest it be seen as fractionalizing or distrust.

We were talking about the concept of God loving in a Song of Song-y way, the idea that He delights over us and knows us intimately and all that.  Which I can totally get behind – I’m not positive that God intended Song of Songs to be a letter to us as much as a picture of marriage, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. The bottom line is, Jesus knows you better than your spouse even could and loves you intimately anyway. Great. If he was supposed to know everything and yet I was able to pull a fast one, that doesn’t say much for Him, does it? So I think if we believe in Omniscience, we can roll with the concept of Lover Jesus, right?

However, we kept pulling out this verse: “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.” (Hosea 2:14) Which everyone was insisting that we use to think about what we would want God to “speak tenderly” to us.  So in our moment of silence and reflection, I, Squeaky Wheel Extraordinaire, could not think about any kind of Divine sweet nothings, but rather am wondering why He had to drag me out to the desert to tell me this stuff, anyway. I mean, there is such a thing as candlelight and good pasta, and it’s worked to get stuff said in my relationships, ifyaknowwaddamean.

So anyways, everybody’s talking about all the great things that they want God to say, and I have to pipe up and ask this Squeaky Wheel question. Does God only speak through pain? Even further, does He will bad things to happen that we might listen more closely? I can’t imagine worshiping a God who wills Evil to take its toll, so why do such things happen? If they’re just a sweet nothing device than maybe I’d rather keep my health and leave the pleasantries for heaven, right?

Now please understand. I believe that God is good. And I’m under no illusions that I’m supposed to or even able to figure this all out. But I do want to have the discussion. So after I throw all this out there, our leader says to me, “But Dani, what do you want God to say to you in this?” Of course I have no idea. So she tries again. “What do you want to ask of God?” At this point I’m a little bothered, so I perhaps unwisely blurt out, “I want to know why I’m in the effin’ desert!” Which luckily everybody thought was funny. Whew.

But seriously. Why? I know that our leader was not trying to stifle debate, but this happens all too often in Christian circles, with any mystery being shrugged off as “the wisdom of God is wiser than ours” or some other vague Biblical reference to explain why we don’t know what we don’t know. And it’s OK not to know. But it’s not OK, (at least in my mind) to not be curious.

For example, going back to the desert thing. I’m in love with my fella. Heart and soul, body and mind, I’m as head-over-heels as a wife can get. HOWEVER, if he did something sort of hurtful, or took me somewhere scary, I would need an explanation before the Sweet Nothings could really work in his favor. Right ladies? Your fella is driving you out into the middle of nowhere and runs out of gas. He can’t immediately turn to you and start the hubbahubba-iloveyou business right? You know he’s a good guy, you love him, but you also need an explanation. You need a way out, you need some reassurance. Then maybe you can chat away the night until the tow truck comes and it’ll be a great story for the grandkids.

So I guess that’s what I’m asking about with regards to God. I know it’s not the same, but if we’re going to draw comparisons to Him as a lover, then we are sort of stuck thinking about him in the only way we know how, as a human love.

But anyways. As I read more of Hosea and think about it more, I think I’m OK with the desert. I understand that the “she” of Hosea had wandered away from God in sin, and was taken to the desert to repent. I also know, that, as C.S. Lewis said, “Pain is God’s megaphone to a deaf world” and that He uses deserts in our lives to give us clarity and hope. I also know that the desert could be not a bad thing at all, but kind of like going on a camping trip with your Hubby – you know, in the zip-together sleeping bag kind of way.

So there’s a lot of ways to go with this, and now that I’ve spent 900 words and nobody is still reading, I’ll end with the Earth-shattering revelation that I don’t get any of it. Probably will never get even a fraction. But I still want to. I want to be curious. I want to strive for wisdom. I want to get all of these generations represented here to chime in, to tell me to calm down my foolish 26-year-old self. I want to know, and I want to discuss and I want to flex my muscles. I don’t want to be content with not asking… then where will my mind go when my time in desert comes back around? It’s like voting based on whether or not the candidate is good-looking – how can I believe in something unless I know what’s behind it?

5 comments found

  1. I kept reading, all the way to the end.

    I like to converse with myself about this very topic. I turn to myself and declare, “Surely God didn’t bring me to the desert to die.” But then remember all the Israelites who didn’t make it to the Promise Land, all the ones who died waiting in the desert still complaining. I think I have a lot to learn about deserts.

    Praying that the God who sees and knows will lead you through it and to it.

  2. Tonight at Bible study we had a time of listening and one of the things I felt like God was saying to me was, “the setbacks are worth the changes.” I’ve been frustrated lately over I guess what you could call desert experiences, and thinking how much farther along we’d be if we could have taken the quicker path through the meadow. But I guess God just knows that we will sometimes become more like him after a quick trip to the desert. I don’t think God inflicts evil on us, but I think our sinful natures have consequences and because God is awesome He uses even that for the good. And speaking as a parent, some times my daughter needs a time out. It isn’t evil. She thinks it’s painful, but it’s not. And it’s a lot less painful than the consequences of what she was doing were going to be. If that makes sense.

  3. I do very much appreciate your willingness to ask hard questions. It is so so difficult to do, to ask why you have to be in the desert, etc. I hope you keep on doing it. I will humbly say that I have been on a journey of letting myself ask those really hard questions, and it has led me away from Christianity. Despite praying and praying, “God, don’t let me outlive my love for you,” I am no longer a Christian. So either the God I was praying to doesn’t exist, or the same God that took me to through those highs and lows most of my life is the same one who brought me out of Christianity, the same one I’m still trying to follow.

    Good luck (and I hope that wasn’t too personal.

  4. I kept reading, too. And I’ve asked those hard questions and I still don’t have any answers – but I think it’s important to keep asking them.

    I believe that God speaks both through pain and through the good times – though I still don’t have any idea why He has to speak through pain. I guess I just wanted to say that I’m here in the questions with you.

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