Forty days in a figurative wilderness ended four days ago…

a time of shut doors and stripped self-life, a sort of exile from the familiar and “productive.”

Yet rather than a thirsty desert, in shades of dark gray bleakness, rather than a place of empty longing for something brighter and better, my “wilderness” was the site of one of my richest, deepest, most spiritually intimate times with my Savior, Lord, and Friend.

It was the retreat I hadn’t taken,

the vacation I’d long craved,

the (mini) sabbatical of which I’d felt such need, so enriching and building and insight-instilling that I didn’t much want it to end.

Now that the calendar is getting all scribbled up and my days are getting filled again with activity, I long to stay there in that blessed “wilderness,” or at least to keep available for myself a corner of it where I can go to be with Him alone.

Where, after all, did Abraham find his deep communion with the Almighty? Where did Moses encounter the LORD and hear His voice? Where did he experience His glory? Where did David have those sweet times with his God? Where did Hagar “see” “the God Who sees me”? In the wilderness.

And so it has been with me. I thank God for His wilderness, and especially for His awesome presence in it.

And so, may I make an effort to keep it—and use it—even as I head back now to the crowded highway…