Roots in the Desert

Dear Readers,

We all seem to be in a time of life where we feel we are waiting for something big, that it is on its way, but not here yet. All of us understand how difficult the waiting game is. How hard it is to be content. To not be discouraged and depressed, and we've all fallen into that state and helped each other out of it many times. One of you has encountered a certain message on the order of nine times which has encouraged you, spoken to your heart, given you hope, and made you glad. I too, once had a similar experience. It was not a verse of scripture, rather, it came through a good friend. I was a sophomore in college and perhaps in the thick of my struggle with depression and trials of faith. My good friend who was rather acquainted with my struggle comes down into the lounge one evening with a nervous look on her face and hands me a piece of paper. She would like assurance that she is not crazy, she tells me, and wants to talk to another of our friends whom we both respect alot just to make sure. I ask her what it is, and she said that while in prayer, she was interceding for me, and felt moved to write. After typing and printing it in blue ink on ordinary white paper, she brought it down to me, neatly folded. I opened and read, and this is what it said:

My son,

In drought you are learning strength, diligence, and desire; you would have taken My mercies for granted, but you will treasure them and find them more sweet and dripping with honey through long desiring. By learning to stand firm and live like a tree in drought, you will be able to pour my blessings through yourself and to others in times of abundance. How well you will be prepared to minister when you have abundance!
Even common food is exquisite to a fasting man; I will give you to break your fast with honey and sweet wine, with feasting. I have kept you in waiting to learn patience, in dryness to learn fervor, in doubt to learn compassion, in darkness to learn dependence on Me.
When I bring you to the mountaintop, when I fill you with strength and wisdom, when I loose your mouth to speak blessing and your hands to the work I have prepared for you, then you will know through long desiring that it is I, the Lord, who has done this. Even my beloved Son entered the dry wilderness to prepare for ministry, even after He received the Holy Spirit. He, even Christ, was subject to every temptation and to the attack of the evil one. Stand firm, beloved, for I am refining you as with fire, I am strengthening your desire because I desire you.
John 20:29 "Then Jesus told him, 'Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
Also, Matthew 5:1-10 (The Beatitudes)

I cannot tell you what joy and comfort these words brought to my heart. Words that I had longed to hear from the mouth of God, each one was precious to me. It seems to me that God spoke to me through someone else at that time because on my own I could not hear him for all the din in my own soul. I still have that paper, faded and creased. I asked myself the other day why God has not spoken to me in this manner again, and it seems to me the answer was because now I can hear him, I simply need to apply myself and listen.

This message came to me in the context of great trials of faith and interior darkness. That experience lasted with varying degrees even after I graduated, in fact, right up to the point where I wrote my second ever entry to this blog. Trials continued after that, but took a little bit of a different shape.

I wonder how I can interpret this message now in the context of my present. Should it be interpreted? Is it meant to be a lasting source of comfort and encouragement, or was it a message for the time and is meant to be laid aside, and remembered only as a proof of God's faithfulness? I know this is not a verse of scripture, and even if it were, God speaks differently through Scripture each time: the same verse can have hundreds of different meanings depending on what He wants to tell us.

As I write now some of the trials of faith have subsided, but perhaps only because I am no longer in an atmosphere which breeds questions. But I still feel like I am waiting, seeking. I still often feel dry and discouraged. Does this message apply now still? I do not know. Was it even really from God? I should like to think so (and so would my friend I think too.) All I know is that I still live in hope for that day when my fast shall be broken with honey and sweet wine. And I reflect on myself, and what I have learned thus far in the journey. Have I learned to stand firm? Do I treasure the mercies of the Lord? Have I learned patience, fervor, compassion, dependence? I think to some degree I have. I think I still have farther to go. My battle now is to find contentment, which in a sense I think would be a certain fulfillment of those virtues. Standing firm, dependent on God. I do believe there is a Psalm about waiting on the Lord. Unfortunately, I can't remember where it is. If anyone knows, feel free to let me know.