Beloved Daughter,
You can’t mix sand to bake bread
But Manna is here.

This haiku has been whispering within since it came to me a few weeks ago. My response to Lent had been rather unfocused, but by the grace of God, the poem emerged as the Spirit hovered over my weariness, my creativity and my meditation on Jesus’ first temptation in the wilderness:

The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”   But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God.’ ” Matthew 4:3,4 (NRSV)

Indeed, I do find myself in a desert season these days.  This isn’t the first time I’ve been here.  I know that there is purpose, power and provision to be found even in dry places.  I also know that the temptation for me to try to fend for myself is very real.  No, I can’t turn stones into bread, but with my resourcefulness, surely I can think of some other options. But Manna, that Bread from Heaven, is here. And so I rest. I eat. I listen. I learn.

In The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality, Belden C. Lane points out that “without the tough-minded discipline of desert-mountain experience, spirituality loses its bite, its capacity to speak prophetically to its culture, and its demand for justice.”  So the significance of yielding to the work of the desert is bigger than my own spiritual growth.  Therefore, the questions for me (and perhaps for you) are:

Will you be a good steward of this desert experience? 

Will you take off your shoes and declare this to be holy ground? 

Will you cooperate in being stripped of whatever would hinder your devotion to Christ and your love of others? 

Will you walk in the valley of dry bones long enough to cry out for rivers of resurrection in the midst of idolatry, injustice, and despair?

In the company of Hagar, Moses, Elijah, Ezekiel, John the Baptist,
and in the presence of Jesus Christ,
let us say…

Yes.

Your Call: Recall the last time you were in a dry place.  Perhaps you are there now.  Either way, what lessons have you taken away from the experience?  How will you retain and act on what you have learned?  Who would potentially be blessed if you yielded to God’s work in the desert?