Growing – Not Just Going

“Ah-ha” moments often come out of the blue and catch us off guard; smack us upside the head; right-size our world. I had a revelation like that deep in my desert time. I was reading Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wind in the Door for the hundredth (two-hundredth? three hundredth?) time. My favorite author. Her popular children’s series. The following books perhaps slightly less known that the first title, A Wrinkle in Time. Same characters. Same idea. Good vs. evil. And this time, with a cherubim – and that one not how you might imagine it at all. In the final part – the one that always grabs me up tight by the throat – Meg is desperate to save her brother’s life and must convince the farandole inside one of his mitochondria to deepen and accept its role as a mature fara. While this plot point standing alone may not make sense to the unread, what I want you to hear is the idea of growing deeper.

Deepening may have been one of my most important lessons from the desert. When the realization sunk in that I needed to be listening and learning in the desert. Stop being angry. Stop flailing about. Be still. Hear what He had to say. This was my turn to deepen and sink my roots into His heart and into the experience of what He was teaching me. This was my crossroads.

This revelation changed everything for me. Although I was sometimes still impatient and frustrated, I looked at the desert with renewed purpose; with eyes opened to new truths – the most important truth: He was going to renew me in the desert and make the changes in me that had been a long time coming. The changes that would transform my life. All the lessons that had come before shifted into focus with my transformed view.

There will be a tipping point for you in your desert if you allow the Lord to work in your life. I understand that in the beginning, it doesn’t seem like there can be purpose in the dryness or a reason for the suffering. But all these things work together to shape us and create us into the person that He has in mind – the person He wants us to be.

Maybe you’re standing at your crossroads today. Is it time for you to deepen? Is it time to release the anger and be still for just a moment?

Allow yourself to take time in His presence and ask for the reason behind your journey. He is with you here and has placed you in this time for a specific purpose. God will not leave you alone on this journey, and He will not leave you without answers, if only you will seek His face.

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