Category: wilderness

Provisions: A Stock of Needed Materials or Supplies

 
For we are His workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand
that we should walk in them.
(Ephesians 2:10 NKJV)
 

As I prepare to head out this weekend to worship with other dreamers, I was thinking about a theme God has been playing through my mind for at least three years now:

Prepare Your Provisions


It’s a phrase from the passage in Joshua 1, where God instructs the Israelites to get ready to enter the Promised Land.

The thing about the command that strikes me as important is this: God does not say “provide your own provisions.” Instead He invites them to gather things up and get ready. The provisions were taken care of in advance. God saw ahead, He had the foresight for everything they needed.

Much of their supply was arranged for way back in Eygpt land, when He told them to ask their neighbors for their valuables. He also took care of their every need during their wilderness experience. (Their shoes didn’t even wear out.)

It is with great expectation and joy that I travel to the Jumping Tandem retreat to see what God has put together beforehand, before I even get there or the rest of the brave souls who are travelling to this rallying point to dream with their Captain, Brother and King!

 
 
 
Praise the
Redeemer
Our
Victor, who
In advance
Set us apart for
Immanuel,
Our Savior, who
Never runs out of
Supplies.
 
Posted on by kelrohlf 2

Expedition: A Journey Undertaken for a Specific Purpose

 “… the Holy Spirit compelled Jesus to go into the wilderness.”
Mark 1:12 NLT
 
 
Over the next forty days, I am planning to go on a spiritual expedition. A spiritual experiment of sorts. Not a forty day fast. Nor a forty day retreat, but forty days of preparation. Forty days from today marks the weekend before Thanksgiving. The weekend after Thanksgiving will mark the forty days of Advent.

As the end of this year approaches, I am surprised by an invitation to continue to rest. I started out the year with a forty day Sabbath, seeking to be ready for what I hoped would be a new season of encouraging women in my home. I wanted to offer a place to retreat and be refreshed by God. This vision birthed out of my own desire to practice more solitude in the midst of a world that distracts so easily.

Even last year, this desire was growing. I wrote about it in a journal entry dated: Tuesday, June 22, 2011.
 
“…but what I really want is my life to matter. To enjoy what I have—to share what I have with others. Out of the overflow of this…I long to invite women to retreat and be refreshed, renewed and restored.”

By now, I thought I would be offering day retreats in my home to weary souls. Yet God in his ability to see beyond my thoughts has invited me to wait in His presence. To soak in His Word and rely on Him as the Spirit moves me into this “wilderness” season.

Jesus was led into the wilderness for forty days. We know that part of the purpose was a testing, but I think mostly it was a time of preparation. And that is the specific purpose that leads me to a season of staying home more, reading more and praying with intention to discover and develop ideas that have been whirling around my heart, soul and mind. To test them, and see if this is the direction God would have me to go.

Pray for me as I embark on this expedition. You may hear more musings about it here. Who knows? I just know that I must follow hard after Jesus, and trust Him to lead me on into New Frontiers.


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Posted on by kelrohlf 5

Grasp:To Embrace

Grasping at straws. Sifting through sand. Wandering through the wastelands of my mind, wondering why this desert season?

“Grasp my hand.” A faint call from across the universe. I step closer, incline my ear. “You are not alone. Take my hand.” I reach out and the distance seems unreachable, but you are infinite and able to reach me before I fall completely in the dust of despair.

You grasp my shoulders in an embrace, steadying me on the path. You dust me off, offering a drink of Living Water from a well I did not see through my tears. You are the God who sees me, who sees ahead and has seen the wilderness before.

You were here, yourself, a long time ago, wandering and wondering and waiting. Tested and tried. Weary and worn. Hungering for bread. Thirsting for water. Training for the Cross.

You grasp it all. You get my despair. You were tempted like me, yet without turning your back on the Father or grumbling against His intention for Your life. You took hold of what I can never totally comprehend. You clung to the goodness of your loving Father all the way through the sweat and blood and pain, enduring it all. Grasping for the JOY set before time, the JOY of seeing and providing for the great hunger and thirst left from the scars of Eden.

I get glimpses and every once in a wilderness, grasp how wide and how long and how high and how deep is this LOVE.
 
 
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Posted on by kelrohlf 4