desert dwelling | Elaine Olsen

Walking Our Assignment…

July 18, 2009

“See to it that no one misses the grace of God…” (Hebrews 12:15).

This morning, Spurgeon has me thinking about the Israelites’ tribal progression through the wilderness and how this relates to my own progression through mine.

I’m pretty sure I have some “Judahite” blood running through my veins. They were the leaders in the journey; in charge and in front … those given the privilege of a “first glimpse” of the road ahead without the worry of what’s been left behind. Visionary walking suits me. I like being the one trusted with the unfolding of a promise.

I think, perhaps, I have some “Levite” blood coursing through my veins. They found their place throughout the progression. Some in front, carrying the Ark of the Covenant, some in the middle of the pack, charged with the task of carrying the tabernacle and its furnishings. Regardless of their position, their responsibility was all things “worship-related”. “Set-apart” and consecrated walking is also a good fit for me. I like being the one trusted with the sacred things of God.

But the Danites? Those at the rear and trusted with the responsibility of clean up … a final look-over for the “left-behinds”? The last to set up camp and the last to see God’s “up ahead”? Well, I don’t think I’d choose it, but then again, I don’t imagine the choosing is up for grabs.

Some days we lead; some days we clean-up. There is merit and purpose in both positions. We don’t always see it this way. What we see is our position in relation to those around us. We are tempted to measure our “holy” worth by what our brothers and sisters are doing, forgetting all the while that the role we’ve been given is vital and necessary as it pertains to us corporately walking through to God’s land of promise.

God doesn’t intend for our journey of grace to walk in isolation. He means for us to step it in unison as his holy tribe, set apart for his consecration and en route to a completed end. To get there, we must be willing to walk our assigned positions with the understanding that God has ordered our steps and that he is faithful to make each one of them count for kingdom gain.

The trouble comes when we begin to think that we could “order” better … that somehow our wisdom exceeds God’s. Instead of seeing the worth in the place we’ve been assigned, we jockey ourselves for a front position, giving little credence and credibility to our seasons of “in the middle” or “at the back”.

Do you ever wonder if God grows weary with our assessment regarding his assignment for our lives? I’m certain I’ve nearly exasperated his patience along the way … times when I’ve frantically pushed my way “from the back” to try and make a place for myself “at the front”. Some days, I nearly exhaust myself from the spiritual gymnastics of trying to land myself in the place of my choosing.

What a waste of time.

I think we diminish God’s kingdom purpose when we allow ourselves the freedom to roam between camps, squandering time and expending energy on things that aren’t intended for our consideration. In doing so, we delay the process of our holy progression. How much better would it be to pitch our tents in the place of God’s intention and get busy with the assignments lying within our borders rather than reaching for a task never intended for our hands?

For the Danites, that assignment measured out differently than that of the Judahites and the Levites, yet all were equal in worth as it pertained to their moving on with God. All assignments were given with the end result in mind—getting to the Promised Land in tact and with the consecrated faith that comes from walking in corporate trust with God and his people rather than stepping in selfish isolation.

This is our wilderness pilgrimage, friends. Right here; right now. The life we live between two points—our birth and our burial—is the march of faith entrusted to our wandering hearts. This is our desert assignment. Life on earth is but our bridge to the life we will live in the full promise and truth of God’s forever.

Getting there isn’t an easy walk. It means pitching our tents in the place of God’s choosing and making it home until he loosens the pegs and pushes us onward. It means taking our rightful place within his ordered understanding and relinquishing our thoughts about how we could do it better. It means viewing our progression from different vantage points and being incredibly thankful with the fact we’ve been given the eyes to vision God’s promise in any measure, regardless of our positions.

It means keeping to the truth of kingdom perspective and making sure that no one, no single person placed within our allowable reach, misses the grace of God and, therefore, misses the march of freedom.

Perhaps this is the worth of walking with some Danite bloodlines, the beauty of standing “at the back” and with a fuller picture in view. They were the clean-up crew. When the Judahites and the other-“ites” missed a few stragglers—those who were forgotten and mistakenly looked-over in the chaos and confusion of moving ahead—the Danites were charged with their inclusion. With making sure that the “left-behinds” had the opportunity to walk the road of Promise.

I don’t know your position this day. Some of you are in the lead; some are muddled down in the middle, and some of you are hunkered down at the rear. Some of you don’t like your position. I understand. I’ve harbored similar feelings in seasons past; I imagine it won’t be the last time I find my discontent regarding my assigned position. Regardless of our place in the line-up of grace’s procession, we are all charged with its dispensation. With making sure that no one misses out on God’s journey of promise.

And when we take hold of that understanding, that we all are entrusted with a great grace from a great God to be a great influencer regarding a great kingdom, then any position we’ve been assigned becomes holy ground, consecrated and set apart for a great purpose.

It’s a great day to be a kingdom walker and to share this desert wandering with you, my friends. This week, I’m standing with the Danites as part of the clean-up crew … maybe even for the next season of my life. Where have you been called to stand this day? Don’t worry. If you feel left behind in the “push” forward, I’ve got you covered. So does God. You won’t be left behind. This is the beauty of our corporate walk together.

As always, my prayer and hope is for you to know your God more fully in this moment because of your spending some time with me at “peace for the journey”. We serve the only God who can be known. The more we press into his truth, the greater our understanding about who he IS.

Think on him this day, and be thankful for your position within the march to freedom … to Promise. I love you each one.

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PS: If you would like to study further regarding the Israelites’ march to Promise, Numbers 2 is a good place to start.

A Turn Toward the Better (part two): A Desert’s Bloom

September 11, 2008

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on the earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have the opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” (Hebrews 11:13-16).

To quell the rumors…

I have NOT, in fact, climbed the heights of Mt. Nebo and taken my plunge into eternity (please refer last post). I’m still here, walking with the view of Promise in my mind and living with the truth of God’s love in my heart. I’ve heard from many of you over the past few days, and I appreciate your concern. But what I want you to know is that my last post didn’t write from a place of deep depression. Instead, I wrote it from a place of deep introspection. A point of deep conviction and with a sense of urgency that required my obedience via my pen.

Sometimes, these moments come to a soul and pulse so loudly within that, if not spoken aloud, they will bury their voice long and deep, never to sing the melody they were meant to chorus. I learned a long time ago to tend to these melodies. This was one of those occasions, and without risking the integrity of the writing, I would like to unpack it a little more for you today.

Here’s something you need to know.

I don’t climb Mt. Nebo so that I can fast forward into my next. No, I climb Mt. Nebo so that I can better live in my now. The view is breathtaking, even as it was for Moses. It reminds me that I am not home yet. That for all of the promise that can be tasted on this side of eternity, there is a greater promise yet to come.

Moses was quickly ushered into his next without time enough to linger in his lust for the now. He moved from an earthly best into God’s best in a single pause. I find this profound and revelatory and a sacred gift from God to this servant who lived his life as a desert dweller, more than he did as a promise taster. It simply was his journey to make.

As it was with Moses, so it is with me. I am a desert dweller. In fact I wrote an entire series of posts on the topic. It is not a popular view in Christian circles. Most pulpits won’t preach it, and most retreats won’t teach it. Desert living simply doesn’t package well with promotions aimed toward promise and abundance and lush and green.

I love these packages. I’ve purchased most of them. I believe in them and want more than anything to walk in them. But in my daily, I don’t. Not usually. I’ve monitored the condition of my heart for years. I’ve tended to my spiritual pilgrimage and been careful to administer the daily checklists of a Christian obedience. I live Jesus, each and every day, and I am bold enough, or perhaps just crazy enough, to admit that…

most of them walk dusty and hot and hard.

Now, before you send me your books on abundant living and on breaking free from my sands of struggle, you also need to know this.

I’m learning contentment in the desert because I believe that my life was meant to walk as such. I am a pilgrim in search of a better country—a place of perfected promise and full abundance and a pure truth that breathes lush and green. It is an incomparable glory that far outweighs the “all” of my now. Thus, my reasoning for my dusty roads and my acceptance of them accordingly.

Try as I may, I can’t shake them. They have been my portion for as long as I can remember. So here’s the deal.

I can keep trying to shake them and nearly wear myself out with the prescribed and well-intentioned gymnastics of self-help and spiritual disciplines, or I can learn to walk them in faith and with the full expectation that my temporary is seeding for me an eternity that will blow the dust from my eyes and my feet with the full force of God’s forever.

I can learn the beauty and abundance of a long and hard obedience, even in the desert. What choice levels better in the heat of a summer season?

Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, knew what it was to walk a desert road. He lived it. His fleshly frame was cloaked with it. Like me, He was a pilgrim in search of a better country who managed to hold onto and to cherish the sacred perspective of an unseen tomorrow. He never lost sight of it. Not once, because he knew that his Father was seeding in him an eternity that would blow away the sands of our temporal once and for all.

Calvary. Easter. Forever.

A resurrection Bloom that has bled vibrant and alive and lush and green for over 2000 years. Jesus is the desert’s bloom, and thus, I can find the strength and the contentment for the dusty road I currently step.

I am a desert pilgrim. Perhaps it will be my life’s assignment. The desert may not be your portion. You may be walking in the beauty and blossoms of a Spring season. I love this about you. I celebrate this with you, and I relish in your joy. But don’t make the mistake of crying for me in my summer’s walk. God has deemed it important. He is teaching me to trust and to watch and to wait for the beauty of unseen vistas and untouched blossoms. Even as he did for Moses, he does for me.

He walks the journey alongside, whether we’re climbing the difficult mountains toward surrender, or we’re walking the glorious resurrection of such an obedience. Either way, Jesus understands the gap between things visioned and things yet to be tasted.

Either way, he is the bloom of both. In the desert and in promise.

And thus I pray,

For the mighty displays of your witness in all seasons of this journey, I thank you Lord. For being the bloom along my weary and well-worn path, I bow in humble adoration for your companioned beauty and your lasting aroma. I may never understand the fullness of my desert, but I will always endeavor to do so from your guiding watch within. Let me not balk at summer’s heat or falter in my steps toward your forever. You are good and gracious to give me this day, regardless of how it breathes. May I never discount the sacred value of the current road that we travel together. Open my eyes to see, my mind to conceive, and my heart to believe that all is living as you intended for it to live. In me. Through me. And most days, in spite of me…until my now crosses over into my next. Amen.

I haven’t forgotten our walk to Emmaus. We will return to our series in my next post. Shalom!

A Turn Toward the Better

September 9, 2008

Congrats to Joan (#13) at More God = Less Me for winning Chris Tomlin’s new CD (please email me your snail mail, so I can get it to you ASAP). Today, we pause in our study of “Setting the Table for Communion.” There is greater thought that pulses in my heart today and requires my attention. It’s a hard teaching, especially when our hearts cry out for an easy road…a quick fix to the problems of our lives. If that is what you’re after, you won’t find it here. Instead, you will walk my heart’s strain as I seek to make sense of all of the nonsense that crowds and confronts my current. If I can’t live as authentic before you and before God, then why bother? That being said, let’s get to the doing and to the digging in hopes of hearing Him somewhere within the penned thoughts, breathing his truth as only he can.

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“Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the LORD showed him the whole land … Then the LORD said to him, ‘This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, “I will give it to your descendants.” I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.’ And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, as the LORD had said.” (Deuteronomy 34:1, 4-5).

Life hasn’t turned out the way that I thought it would.

I thought it would turn toward all things lovely. Instead, it turned differently. Sometimes lovely. Sometimes in stark contrast, but never quite in the direction that I thought it would. I feel the profundity of it today, as I lie upon my prayer quilt and hammer out my thoughts with God.

He understands. We’ve been here before. Perhaps, he too, shares in my disappointment. Not because his love for me breathes less as a result of my sin, but simply because he knows that my life could have lived differently. A better different, but it hasn’t. And this has been his surrendered gift to me.

A gift that allows a life to walk within the parameters of a freely chosen will. Mine, not his.

I’ve taken God up on his offer many times. Too many to count. Too awfully painful to chronicle in this moment. I don’t tell you this to warrant your sympathy. I simply offer it to you as my explanation for a life that currently lives differently than how I imagined it would live all those many years ago—when life walked young and free and full of ideals that had room to breathe and with the ample innocence to fuel their imagining.

That was then. This is now. And the life lived between innocence’s conception and innocence’s death was a vast territory of wild and reckless exploration that weeps its remembrance this day.

There are portions of the Promised Land that I will never walk on this side of eternity. Not because my Father doesn’t delight in giving me his grace-filled abundance, but rather because my sin has kept me from it. Forty-two years worth of living have authored some seasons of regrets—times in life that have been lost to the indulgence of fleshly appetites over the reasoned pursuit of holiness.

I understand this. I accept it. I know and live the ramifications of my choices everyday. This doesn’t mean that life breathes a pitiful existence for me; it would be a quick leap to live within that conclusion. No, what it means is that life simply walks different and with a full awareness that some of the dreams birthed on the front end of my existence will only find their completed rest on the backside of eternity.

Not here. Not yet, but in the Promised Land that lies just beyond these years of my desert pilgrimage.

Moses walked the territory between a promise given and its final fruition. He would never taste the milk and honey of a God-given dream, much less walk upon its soil. He would only witness it from a distance. From atop a mountain where God would open up his eyes to the wild imaginings of sacred possibility. Moses didn’t come to the mountain with the hope of God changing his mind in the matter. He’d walked with his Father long enough to reason better.

No, when Moses made the climb up Mt. Nebo that day, he did so knowing that death awaited his arrival. Moses came to the mountain to die. To witness with his eyes a final taste of earth’s best and then to witness through life’s surrender his first taste of eternity’s forever—a lasting best that far exceeds any lovely we could walk on this side of heaven.

Indeed, Moses’ life hadn’t turned out the way that he thought it would. His sin kept him from walking God’s perfect and best will. But his finish?

Well, it turned out better than he could have ever imagined. It turned out perfect and lovely and full of the wild imaginings that had followed him since his youth.

The Promised Land…forever beneath his feet.

It is the same for us, even if life isn’t walking the way that we thought that it would. There is coming a better day when all of this will be left behind and traded in for something far more wonderful than our minds and hearts can currently conceive.

If you don’t believe this—if for some reason you’re convinced that your “current” is as good as it gets and that it will breathe as similar in your “next”—then can I be so bold as to suggest that you’ve cast your faith with the wrong King?

This isn’t it, oh sleepy pilgrim. What you and I are living today isn’t the final word on our forever. This life isn’t perfectly lovely, and it certainly isn’t God’s final best. If I believed this, I would walk away in an instant and pay homage to the closest golden calf, because, quite frankly, this faith walk has been hard fought and painfully lived and deserves a final promise that exceeds my mind’s capacity for imagining.

If I could take hold of everything that God intends for me in my now, if I could capture the true pulse of a perfected good within my heart and on this side of eternity, then I’m pretty sure I would stop trying to get there. My pressing on would walk in vain. If this is as good as it gets, then I’m done because life has not turned in the direction that I thought it would.

But it will, even as it did for Moses.

One day soon, because my faith exceeds my flesh, and for all of the sins that have kept me from the fullness of God’s best in my “now,” there is none so great that will keep me from God’s best in my next.

My Promised Land—where milk and honey will be my portion and where God’s lovely will be my perfected end.

That, my friends, is what I’m after. That is the day that I am longing for, for me and for you. And until we make our final climb of surrender, may God grant us all the strength and the wisdom to walk with intention and with the promise of forever pulsing in our veins.

As always,

~elaine

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