February 22, 2015
One of the great ironies in life is that, too
often, success brings more unhappiness, jealousy, and destructiveness than joy,
blessing, and harmony into the world.
Daily our newspapers carry the familiar
headlines: Millionaire superstar arrested on drug charges. Movie star found
dead of overdose. Baseball star jailed for spousal abuse.. Rock star dead of
unknown causes at age 33.
Those are the big headlines, but these things
happen in our lives at another level. Our successes and achievements are often
the cause of self-centeredness, arrogance, jealousy, and destructiveness both
inside ourselves and within our relationships.
Why? Why is it that the things which should
bring us happiness, admiration, and harmony, so often bring us the opposite?
Are success, admiration, and money bad? No.
All good things come from God, success and money
included. What is bad is that, too often, these are attained before a person
has been sufficiently prepared to handle them.
Then they destroy rather than build up. In biblical
terms, what happens is that someone enters the promised land before spending
sufficient time in the desert.
A bit grandiose perhaps? Why dignify these with
high biblical references?
Because they so clearly illustrate the spiritual
truth: Before possessing the promised land there must first be a time in the
desert.
What is meant by this? The desert, biblically
and mystically, is not so much a physical place, a geography, as a place in the
heart.
The desert is that place where we go to face our
demons, feel our smallness, be in a special intimacy with God, and prepare
ourselves for the promised land.
The idea of the desert as a place of
purification has deep biblical roots. The scriptures tell us that, before they
could enter into the promised land, the Israelites had to first wander in the
desert for forty years—letting themselves be led by God, undergoing many
trials, and swallowing much impatience.
This was God’s planning. Thus the desert came to
be seen as the place that correctly shapes the heart and the idea developed
that one should prepare oneself for major transitions by first spending some
time in the desert.
Initially this was taken quite literally and
religious men and women looking for purification would often go off into some
actual physical desert and stay there for a time. Jesus did this.
After his baptism, he went off for “forty days”
into the Sinai desert.
Later, as the scriptures developed, the concept
of desert was de-literalized.
It was taken to mean more a place in the heart
than a place on a map and was understood to be a mystical thing:
Before you are ready to fully and gratefully
receive life, you have to first be readied by facing your own demons and this
means going “into the desert,” namely, entering that place where you are most
frightened, lonely, and threatened. .
In order to be filled by God one must first be
emptied.
The desert does this for
you. It empties you.
Therefore, it is not a
place wherein you can decide how you want to grow and change, but is a place
that you undergo, expose yourself to, and have the courage to face.
The idea is not so much
that you do things there, but that things happen to you while there—silent,
unseen, transforming things.
The desert purifies you,
almost against your will, through God’s efforts. In the desert, what really
occurs is a cosmic confrontation between God and the devil; though this happens
within and through you.
Our job is only to be
have the courage to be there. The idea is that God does the work, providing we
have the courage to show up.
In
terms of an image, this is what the season of lent is meant to be, time in the
desert to courageously face the chaos and the demons within us and to let God
do battle with them through us.
As the prophet Hosea vividly describes it, the desert
is the place where God speaks to our heart,
the place where our covenant relationship with God is
renewed as it was in the beginning.
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