The Wilderness, the Red Shirt, and the Cave

Here’s a riddle: What do the wilderness, a red shirt, and a cave have in common?

At first glance very little; however, to a wilderness wanderer, quite a bit.

After spending 18 years drifting in a spiritual and emotional desert, I found a lovely cave to nest in. Dark, warm, and safe, my emotional and spiritual cave became a recovery zone of sorts. It gave me a beautiful solitude and territorial solidarity to serve as my rehab center. Safe from prying eyes and probing legalistic religiosity, I learned of and leaned into a deep, precious sense of the unmerited, unwavering grace of my Abba.

But even rehab needs to end. Most people are anxious to get out of rehab. I guess I’m not most people. I knew what awaited me outside – more dusty, erred wilderness. Yet in His infinite wisdom my Lord knew what would get me back on the road out of my wasteland.

Forgiving Him.

I have been in the church long enough to have been the perpetrator and the victim of someone Bible thumping the message of forgiveness:

“”If you don’t…God won’t forgive you.”

“If you don’t…you could lose your salvation.”

“If you don’t…”

But even though the Lord knew I needed to forgive Him for, in my mind, abandoning me, do you know how He handled it?

He waited with open arms.

He didn’t thump His Word. He didn’t point a finger. He didn’t lament with stern expressions. He waited with open arms. And so a few weeks ago, I ran into His arms with abandon and found myself on the very short path out of my wasteland.

In football there is a term known as a “red shirt.” Players that wore the red shirt were a part of the team; however, due to injury or illness, were forced to sit out during convalescing. The red shirt was a sign to others that this player is still a valued member of the team; however, they needed to be out a season to heal.

After guiding me out of the wilderness, the Lord handed me back my team jersey, lovingly slapped me on the back, and put me back in the game.

Wanderlust or Just Wandering, Part III

I didn’t realize these offended thoughts toward my Lord - seeds as it were – could find fertile soil within the barren arid ground of my spirit. But they did. Offended thought-seeds can germinate anywhere, especially when the enemy waters and fertilizes it with verbiage from his bag of tricks.

These offense seeds are like cancer cells are to our body. They start small and replicate when the environment is out of alignment. Pretty soon illness takes over, but because the malignant seeds are well-hidden from view by this point, you can’t see the forest from the trees. For 18 years I didn’t see where the originating offense came from because I was too busy blaming everyone or everything else. 

Since this divine revelation of my offense with the One that died for me, I’ve asked Him and myself, “Why did it take me 18 years to get it?” Am I that dense?

The Lord brought me to a devotional from Oswald Chambers that put it in perspective:

Our Lord does not hide these things; they are unbearable until we get into a fit condition of spiritual life. There must be communion with His risen life before a particular word can be borne by us.” *

I have been communing more with my naval than His risen life. My hurt, pain, and betrayal were far more palpable than who Jesus was in my circumstances. How sad. I have spent the better part of 38 years walking with the Lord, but not connecting with who He is. My only measuring stick was what He’d done for me – but that was not enough to keep offense from multiplying and dividing like an insidious diseased cell.

The cry of my heart now is the see Him; the kind of seeing as when you can’t take your eyes off the object of your affections. The kind of seeing and knowing that sees past the “doing”, past the flesh and soul.

The kind that sees His heart.

*My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers

Wanderlust, or Just Wandering, Part I

And then many would be offended… Matthew 24:10

I have had many opportunities to be offended in my 51 years: husband, friends, co-workers, bosses, even my parents! Throughout all, I’ve been able to work through my offense – some easier than others – and get back on the road of life merrily on my way.

Yet, unknowing, I have spent the last eighteen years wandering in an erred spiritual desert. Eighteen long years of shuffling my spiritual, dusty feet looking for my lost destiny. Those who know me well, know I have lost many ministry dreams due to another’s decisions.

My heart bled with each loss and I had to work through the pain of my partner’s betrayals, loss of friendships, and loss of dreams. Each time I had to walk the well-traveled path of forgiveness for the offenses, then wait and pray for another dream, another opportunity to serve.

I learned and grew so much during these refining times - until “that day.” I don’t even know what day it was; but something deep died one day and it’s been dead ever since.

On the outside all looked healed, but in my spirit something – a ubiquitous dark place – took up shop unnoticed.

Offense.

Not with a friend, partner, ministry or church, not with family or a co-worker.

I was offended with Jesus.

To the broken heart of a little girl, my Savior, Healer, Father, and Protector did not pick up a sword and fight for my destiny. In this little girl’s heart, she was left bleeding and bruised on the side of the road blaming everyone involved – yet nursing the smallest seed of thought, “Where was my Jesus when I lost my dream? Where was Jesus when I lost my friends? Where was Jesus when His church ignored me because of their offense with my partner’s sin?”

He was standing next to me weeping.

Yet I couldn't feel or see it through my slow-growing, permeating cancerous cell of offense. It took Him eighteen years to open my eyes and heart to the truth. The church, ministry, ex-husband, or Jesus was not responsible for my eighteen-year desert wandering.

I was.