Themes of the Wilderness

Pete and I had an awesome time at Saturday's Michael Card concert. For a few hours, we were surrounded by music that reminded us of Jesus. If you've never been to one of his concerts, you have got to go sometime.

The theme of this concert was "lament," and he sang about everything from the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden to the end of lament when God brings us the fullness of His joy.

It was a good theme. There have been a lot of changes in my life lately, and I've been, as Pete noted last night, doing a poker-good job of "dealing," instead of being willing to wait in the wilderness and learn about lament.

*wry grin* I want to scream that it's not fair. I already had my stint in the wilderness!

But Jesus was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and we are told to press on to know Him in the fellowship of His sufferings.

“I lack the fervency, vitality, life in prayer which I long for… Cold prayers, like cold suitors, are seldom effective in their aims.”
~Jim Elliot

"Throughout the day, the doctor was conscious that the slightly dazed feeling that came over him whenever he thought about the plague was growing more pronounced. Finally he realized that he was afraid. On two occasions he entered crowded cafés. Like Cottar he felt a need for friendly contacts, human warmth. A stupid instinct, Rieux told himself…"
~Albert Camus, "The Plague"

“The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God. What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose.”
~C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity"

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling [about the new Narnia]
"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that is sometimes looked a little like this. Come further up, Come further in."
~C.S. Lewis, "The Last Battle"

Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn't because he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said:
"Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?"
~A.A.Milne, "Winnie-the-Pooh"

He comes with western winds, with evening's airs,
With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars;
Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire,
And visions rise and charge which kill me with desire...
~Emily Bronte

When I no more can stir my soul to move,
And life is but the ashes of a fire;
When I can but remember that my heart
Once used to live and love, long and aspire,−−
Oh, be thou then the first, the one thou art;
Be thou the calling, before all answering love,
And in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire.
~George MacDonald, "Diary of an Old Soul"

“With unfailing love you will lead this people whom you have ransomed. You will guide them in your strength to the place where your holiness dwells."
~Exodus 15:13

"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, will bring her into the wilderness and speak comfort to her. I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor (tears) as a door of hope; she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.”
~Hosea 2:14-15