Desert Drinking

There is desert rose that only blooms once every five years. That is its purpose. That is its God-glorifying activity. That is what it was created for.

But will it wait?

Will it let those roots go down and wait, wait, wait in hiddenness for five years?

Our waiting in the desert. The job we don’t like. Loneliness. Grief. Laid up. Laid off. Finances. A never-ending court. The child that is still wandering. The journey after the diagnosis. The low but chronic pain that never leaves.

We are tempted to flee. To find quick comfort, do it our own way, to find a resolve. To bandage those aching questions of identity, of who I am, of who God is, of being loved and being with, the loneliness.

But what if we move from the mindset of escape—

—to the mindset of finding, drinking.

Not “God is greener on the other side,”

but “God is here. Open my eyes.”

Let me drink from the depths of everything, in every moment, whether by a river or from the parched desert wadis, let me drain everything to see God. To find God. To find each hidden lesson. To reword James, “let the waiting in the desert, drink from the parchedness to the dregs, let it seep into you and have its full effect, that you may be perfect” (Jas. 1:4) Then the desert rose will bloom. Only when its roots have gone down so deep it can find the nourishment. Only when it has waited and built up the reserves. It will not bloom if it flees.

Will I wait on him? Will I know I am loved enough by him, that he is enough, find my identity in him enough that I can withstand the desert? The heat is bad. The scorching sun. The scathing sirocco winds. The sandstorm that scratchingly sears everything.

But wait.

Life is in the hiddenness.

Forty days in the dark of the womb brings life.

Forty days of Jesus in the desert, and he knew “I am the Son.” Then he ministered.

Wait. Drink.

Life.