The Desert

"therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the day so her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt." Hosea 2:14-15

The desert always precedes restoration. As I read through Hosea today I was struck by the significance of the desert experience. So often in the midst of desert times of life, punishment, persecution, crisis, rebuke, conviction, pain, we become so focused on the immediate discomfort of the situation that we miss the oasis that awaits us. For in the desert God promises restoration and healing. What an amazing thing God promised in Hosea. He would bring His lost people, the very same people who betrayed Him, who disobeyed Him at every turn, back to Himself. The place of His choosing? The desert. Why? I believe the desert provides focus, it brings us to our knees, a place where there is only one thing left for us to see. Today a great reminder for me, God uses those times of hardship to cleanse my soul and bring me to a new place where it's only Him and me. Ah the desert, where His living water is better than anything we could ever imagine, where His voice is the only thing we can hear, where the intensity of His presence is ever present in our lives. God help me to see beyond what my human mind sees in the deserts of life to what you have intended them to be.