into the wilderness
This article was originally published by Daughters of Promise magazine in March of 2020. The irony is not lost on me.
When I was fourteen, I went to New York City for the first time. As an introvert, it was exhausting. As a nature-freak, it was depressing. On our second day, we visited Central Park, the most notable of many beautiful parks throughout the city. I ran and hugged the first tree I saw. The term “tree-hugger” has always been applied literally to me.
Fast-forward ten years and you’d see me stuck indoors, trapped in a prison I made myself. Unemployed, unconnected, overweight, overwhelmed. It’s no wonder depression sank in. I lost sight of the wonders of God's creation, viewing it only through the windows of my small townhouse.
Locked away, I forgot the smell of rain, the cool breeze on my bare arms. How did I let this happen? As a child, I would climb higher up the tree to follow the setting sun’s light. I rolled in grass, befriended cows, and purposely got lost in the woods. I couldn’t get enough of it. I soaked it into my skin and relished the feeling of being drowned in nature. How is it that I forgot that God always meets me there, in His creation? For He infused small pieces of His majesty into the trees, the weeds, the dirt, placed intentionally for us to see Him in it.
“God is in the rain”
But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.
Job 12:7-10 NIV
This is one of my favorite lines from Natalie Portman’s V for Vendetta. I love it because it’s true. God sewed bits of His beauty into creation, and now all of creation screams His name. Paul tells the Romans that anyone who knows nature knows God, and therefore has no excuse for their wickedness, “for although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.” (Romans 1:21 NIV)
So, too, can we know God through His creation. Walk outside. Spring is coming. Maybe for you, reader, it has already come. The birds are singing again. The trees are budding. The grass is greening. God’s creation is screaming his glory.
A special place God created specifically for us.
The greatest tragedies of our age are our constant motion, our overscheduled lives, and our obsessive attachment to screens. We tend to believe we’ll be robbed of happiness if we fail to match the world’s pace step for step when in fact this pace robs us of the simplicity that displays beauty, which in turn leads to thanksgiving and, after thanksgiving, joy.
Searching for Spring, Christine Hoover
I went back to New York City last June. I experienced it much the same as I did when I was a teenager. In the middle of Times Square, my cousin decided to stop and talk to a friend, and I stood agape, overwhelmed by it all. Inundated by noise and lights, it’s hard for me to hear a person right next to me, let alone comprehend what they’re saying. Why should we expect our conversations with God to be different?
Over and over again, God chooses to meet his people in the peace and quiet of the wilderness. For forty years, he watched over the Israelites in the wilderness. God called Moses through a bush, and continued to meet with him on a mountaintop. God told Abraham to go into the wilderness to offer a sacrifice, and saved Isaac from being that sacrifice. John the Baptist lived, prayed, taught, and worshiped in the wilderness. Jesus himself wandered the wilderness for forty days, and repeatedly withdrew to mountains and gardens to pray to His Father.
When we meet God in the wilderness, where our minds are still and calm, we can hear with clarity, with focus. Like a fresh snowfall, the busy sounds of life are dampened and troubling thoughts are hushed. Left in the silence, God speaks.
I remember now. There in the forest, He always invites me, draws me in, and talks quietly to me. Once immersed, I never want to leave the company of trees, and the company of their, my, personal Creator.
Go out and meet God in the wilderness. He’s waiting for you.