Living Our Consecrated Deserts (part one): Stepping Up to the Table

Today, I begin a new mini-study with you on what it is to embrace the life of a desert dweller. It is an existence that has chased me my entire life. Only now am I beginning to live in the sacred potential of such a pilgrimage. I welcome your participation and look forward to your walking this road with me. There can be peace in our journeys, friends—even when the journey boasts a desert road. Pack your bags, put on some good walking shoes, and let God turn up the heat! I believe that he has something to teach us all.

“So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, ‘It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.’” (Acts 6:2-4).

There is story in God’s Word that has followed me for nearly two years. I can’t seem to shake its prod. It is easy to miss if one is prone to lingering in the pinnacles of scripture—those big story moments that have remained in the spotlight for thousands of years. Nestled between a martyr’s stoning (Stephen) and a persecutor’s redemption (Paul), is the story of one lesser known. He was a man content to live in service to his Lord, even when that service required a desert’s walk.

His name was Philip, and from his first mention in scripture until his last, Philip lived his consecrated calling. No task was beneath his servant hood. What began as a ministry of literal feeding emerged into a ministry that exceeded the needs of the flesh to include the spiritual needs of the soul.

And when those needs required a scattering—a relocation to a lesser desired location—Philip obeyed. He went without complaining and with the holy perspective that God’s kingdom agenda would best be served somewhere beyond his comfort. Beyond his normal. Beyond his now. Philip would be called to the desert, and rather than run from its heat, Philip reached to take hold of its warmth.

What emerged from this lesser preached obedience is a story rife with application for those of us who, like Philip, find ourselves in a desert’s pause and who sometimes feel adrift, forgotten, and certainly not consecrated for such an existence.

Desert dwelling.

It is a hard walk. A hot and arid journey, where water falls brief and sand sticks thick. A day’s pilgrimage that sometimes turns into weeks. Months. Years. Maybe, even a lifetime. It is an uncomfortable reach, especially for children who have been promised a spacious land filled with the milk and honey of an abundant grace.

I could skip over this seeming contradiction. Pretend that waterfalls and full living are my constant, but the truth of my matter is the fact that, for most of my life, I have been a desert dweller. For reasons beyond my understanding, I often stay stuck in my desert. I stay as I am, and as each day passes, I grow exceedingly weary with my seemingly little progress toward nowhere. I believe that there are others who share my sandals and who have walked the same. This wilderness wandering is one of the many breathing realities within the Christian community today.

We are a people existing in desert conditions, desperately searching for our consecrated purposes within its heat. If we can’t escape its hold, then we often choose to wander within its confinements with our aimless and angry intent companioning alongside. Rather than accepting its parameters and finding God’s sacred objective in our allotted space, we relinquish our feet and hands and hearts to the blisters and parch that rarely yield purpose and almost always birth resentment.

I speak from experience, for I have lived and breathed such a witness. For all of my years of walking with Jesus, one would reason me past the confines of a desert’s enclosure. But years and experience and wisdom aren’t always enough to warrant me worthy of its escape. No, sometimes something more is required of me. God’s more. And God’s more is always rooted in his best.

Thus, there are seasons when a desert walk becomes my consecrated necessary.

What I choose to do with that “necessary” is solely up to me. God will never force my consecration in the matter, but lovingly he offers it to me as the best option. He knows that there is a time and purpose for every season in my life and that sometimes, his best purpose is fleshed out upon the sands of an uncertain desert.

Philip walked upon those sands. He stepped up to the table when he was called to serve. He wouldn’t know the fame of the apostles. Indeed, his story is easily missed if we are prone to the prestige and pageantry of bigger biblical moments. But it is his story, as contained in the book of Acts, that has shadowed me for a long season, and now I am ready to put thought into his consecrated necessary so that I, too, can find purpose in mine.

There are things—sacred and unseen truths—that birth in our seasons of seeming barrenness. On the front end, we are often blinded to their realities. Sometimes we enter the desert knowingly. Sometimes, we wake up to find ourselves already drenched in its dry. Either way, our only certainty in these uncertain seasons is Jesus. Simply Jesus. When we allow him his purpose in our necessary, the outcome always favors his kingdom agenda…in our lives and in the lives of those we meet along the way.

I don’t know how your season is currently living. Mine is living pretty well considering that I have just come down from some recent mountain moments with God. I much prefer my time on the sacred pinnacles, but the valley is where I do most of my living. It is where God most often chooses to hammer out my faith. In the heat and in the dry, but with the promise of a consecration that boasts kingdom purpose and abundant return.

We will witness this truth in life of a servant named Philip over the next several posts. I hope you will join me in the desert. Many of you are already there. Let us walk the sands of our uncertainty together and see what great things our Father has in store for us.

The table has been set. The time has been chosen. Today is that time. God is inviting you and me to receive his eternal purposes for our lives, even in the midst of our heated temporal. Would you be willing to step up to the table and allow him to consecrate your desert for his kingdom agenda? I am and so I pray,

Lead on O King Eternal, in the heat and in the cool of my desert. I confess that I do not always understand your wisdom in the matter, but I am willing to try. Keep me to your Word, Father…to the truth of a desert’s embrace. Consecrate my every moment, every encounter, every word, and every act of service for an eternal purpose that exceeds my weary. And when I can no longer stand, when the drought of the desert threatens my thirst, bring me to your well of living water for lasting refreshment. Teach me, Lord, how live as a desert dweller. Really live. Beyond my usual. Beyond my aimless, until I walk straight into your eternal purposes for my life. Amen.

A further pause…

~Describe the setting of your most recent desert dwelling.

~After reading Acts 6 – 7, what are some reasons that might have Philip already walking a figurative desert road, even though he’s yet to walk one physically?

elaine

Copyright © June 2008 – Elaine Olsen. All rights reserved.

If you would like to join me in the desert, please take time to read Acts, chapters six and seven over the next couple of days. These verses will set the stage for our study of Philip’s sojourn in the desert. As a way of further reflection, I will offer a couple of questions with each post. Feel free to comment regarding those questions or add any additional thoughts you would like to share. I won’t be posting again until the weekend, so you have plenty of time to reflect. Shalom!