Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O Lord, the God of truth. - Psalm 31:5

May 2, 1998 Walking with God means walking through the desert. That is where he is going. And that is where he is building his road. But he is not just passing through the wilderness; he is transforming it. Walking where God walks, through the desert wilderness, means also being part of that transformation. This selection of excerpts from my journal begins with a parable about the course of my life this past year, then concludes with some observations on a few of the ways God uses the desert experience. Joe

JOURNAL 4/21/98 For many years now there's been a carpenter working on my house. When he first began to work there was some major remodeling that needed to be done. It hurt to see so much of the house that I had built myself have to be torn out and replaced. But it had to be done, and so I learned to live with it. And time after time I watched the carpenter rebuild the things he had torn out, leaving them better than they had been before. Better than I could ever have built them. And as time passed more and more of the remodeling work was completed, until it seemed all that was left for the carpenter to do was keep up with a minor repair here and there, and maybe add a little decorative detailing in the corners. But then one day I discovered that one entire wall had been torn down, leaving just a gaping hole in the side of my house. Confused and angry, I tried to figure out why the carpenter had done such a thing. Looking at the hole and the pile of scrapped lumber I could see that the wood had been sound. The wall had been doing its job, supporting the ceiling and keeping out the cold wind. There was no reason for it to have been torn down. No reason at all. Furious, I called the carpenter and threw him out of my house. Then, alone once more, I fell down onto the floor and wept for my beautiful wall, now ruined and in pieces. And I shivered in the cold wind blowing through the gaping hole. Time passed. Despite my fears, the ceiling didn't fall down. I learned to wear a coat when the wind started to blow. And still, every time I passed the hole where the wall had been I cursed the stupid carpenter who had torn it down. One day I looked up and saw that a piece of plywood had been nailed across the hole, blocking some of the cold air. I looked closer. Someone had been working to rebuild my ruined wall. It looked like the carpenter's work. He had come back while I was asleep. 'Fine,' I thought. 'If the carpenter wants to play games, then let him. Somebody has to fix that damned hole, and it might as well be him. After all, he's the one who put it there.' And so the wall was slowly rebuilt. When the carpenter saw that I wasn't trying to stop him from working he started coming in the daytime as well, and the work progressed a little faster. I watched carefully as he did his work. The new wall was a little thicker than the old one had been, and the supports looked a little firmer, but other than that it looked just the same. He wasn't doing anything that was worth tearing down a wall for. I waited until it looked like the carpenter was pretty much finished, and then confronted him. "What the hell did you think you were doing?" I demanded. "You tore down my wall, and then built it back just like it was. Why? What were you thinking?" "Yes, it does look the same," the carpenter replied. "But that's just the outside. On the inside I've strengthened the supports, and put in a lot of extra bracing. Your wall is now a lot stronger than it used to be." "So what?" I asked. "It was strong enough already. It wasn't cracking or threatening to fall; the ceiling didn't sag; the wall was doing just what it was supposed to do." The carpenter nodded. "It held up the ceiling, yes. But it wasn't strong enough to support the weight of the second story. That's why I had to rebuild it." "You're nuts," I told the carpenter. "I don't even have a second story." The carpenter smiled. "You will."

JOURNAL 4/25/98 John 15:9-10. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. How did the Father love Jesus? By sacrificing him? Is that what this passage is saying? That if I obey his commands, God might put me in a position to be tortured and killed too? Clearly, the answer is yes. It could very well happen. God has sent many of his children to face certain death. There is no guarantee that he won't do the same thing to me. No guarantee at all. Psalm 73:13-14. Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning. Asaph, the psalmist, seems to have understood quite well that God does not promise happiness; that goodness and faithfulness are often rewarded with suffering; and that wickedness and pride often bring success in the world. Evil is rewarded and good punished, so why am I so intent on being faithful to the God who supposedly controls all this? Psalm 73:16-17. When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. Answers aren't found anywhere in the world. They are found in the quietness of sitting in God's presence. Psalm 73:21-26. When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And being with you, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Asaph must have gone through a period of depression, just as I did. A time when, no matter where he looked, all he could see was darkness. When even the distant hope of light seemed to be nothing but the cruelest of illusions. And yet he came through the darkness. He passed through the valley of the shadow of death, and emerged into the light beyond. Life is stronger than death. This isn't just something I read in the Bible. God has proved it in my own life as well. Despite all appearances, despite losing every support and prop, every reason I've ever had for going on, life still proved stronger than death. Light was stronger than darkness. What is unseen was still able to overcome what is seen. This is the meaning of my struggles over the past year. To prove once again, not just from reading, but through experience, that: John 1:5. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Depression very nearly killed me. But very nearly doesn't count. The one who is in me proved himself stronger than the one who is in the world, even when I had nothing whatsoever that I thought was worth living for. Even in the darkest part of my own despair, and at times despite my own desire, life was stronger than death. More than anything else, this is my testimony. That life is stronger than death. The light shines brighter than the darkness.

JOURNAL 4/26/98 God is love. What does that mean to me? What does it mean that God loves me? To me it means two very different, but related things. First, because God loves me he asks me to let myself be used for his purposes. He wants me to share in his victory. To allow myself to be used to do things the God really could do much better without me. And that's hard. Abiding in God's love will take me to much darker, much more painful places than I would go through on my own. It took Jesus to the cross. But God's love also means that I won't go there alone. He has gone through the same pain and the same darkness himself, and he will take me by the hand and guide me through it. © 1998, Joe Jefferson. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to make copies for ministry purposes, provided no fee is charged and this copyright notice is included.