Rocks in the Wilderness – How God Provides
I would characterize a recent year of mine as one of wandering in the wilderness. I knew I was headed into a difficult season with new rules, feelings, opportunities and problems. Wilderness, I came to learn over that year, is synonymous to Middle Easterners as a place to meet with the Lord, a place where God speaks, according to author Kristi McLelland. I loved the concept of being in the middle of a wilderness season yet receiving the very best thing, His presence.
“Wilderness – a place to meet with the Lord, a place where God speaks.”
Kristi McLelland, Jesus and Women
From my limited, human, want-my-own-way perspective, it appeared at times that God seemed to be missing from my wilderness. But strangely, in those very moments when God appeared quiet or missing, the very next He would feel so fully near and overwhelmingly present. Looking back at where I felt Him seemingly missing, it was in the distance between my longing for outcomes that my heart had grown attached to and the space between what actually was. As quiet as God felt at times to the answering of my burdens, the very next He was doubly loud in His encouragement. Now I know, deep within, what it means to walk in the valley, and that He is with me. He comforts me, prepares a table, and makes me rest. In that rest, He reminded me to look at Him, not at the problem or what I longed the outcome to be. He is the provision.
I heard speaker and author, Jackie Hill Perry, reference the story about the Israelites’ wandering. They seemed lost, hopeless and utterly desperate for help. She described the scene of them looking thirstily around the desert, seeing nothing but dirt and rocks, yet God saw something else. He saw a way to show them that He could provide from nothingness. A reminder to them, and to any who read the account, that He can bring provision from anywhere. He provided. He miraculously gave them water, not from what their eyes could see, but a rock. Perry asked, “Do I have the confidence He can satisfy me when I don’t see the water?”
“Do I have the confidence He can satisfy me when I don’t see the water?”
Jackie Hill Perry, Passion 2023
Isn’t that relatable? When going through hard seasons, we search with our eyes and hands for provisions to help us get through. We grab the remote, the pantry door, relationships, the bottle, the pills, the phone, anything that we can see to provide relief in the midst of our wilderness. Yet I am so challenged to look around at what seems like a dry place full of rocks and know that God brings the provision I need from wherever He chooses, and usually not from what I am expecting. He had previously shown up in miraculous ways for the Israelites, one would think they would be expecting miraculous types of provisions again, but we are human, and His ways are not our ways.
However, it should not be surprising that God used a rock. He calls himself our rock, a living stone, our fortress and salvation, a rock of refuge, my rock my Savior, and so many more. Sometimes He used rocks for different purposes other than to describe Himself. We see David looking around to fight his battle and grabbing small stones. God used those small stones, a seemingly small provision, to defeat David’s enemy. A stone was rolled away so that Jesus could rise and declare His power over the grave. It’s also written that the rocks will cry out in glory to Him if people refuse. People took rocks and turned them into altars to remember and rehearse all that God had done for them.
When I encounter the next wilderness season, and all I see is a wasteland, a land full of rocks that seem to have no purpose, I want to reclaim, remember and rehearse how God can bring provision from things in unseen ways. The Bible says , “He moves in mysterious ways,” and that we don’t know His thoughts and ways. Seeing glimpses of His character made my wilderness season precious. “People in our (Western) culture are trying to get out of the wilderness, while the Middle Eastern view is to take the wilderness with you, ” McLelland says.
Here I am feeling like I am at last leaving the wilderness but choosing to stuff some rocks in my pockets and take them with me as a reminder of His meeting with me there.
