The Way of the Wilderness

"The way of God is the wilderness, it's always been the wilderness. The way of God is weakness, it is voluntary weakness." -Misty Edwards

To live in the wilderness is to live a life of weakness. Fasting is weakness, giving is weakness and prayer is weakness. Food and water are the fundamental elements needed for survival. By giving these up a person declares that God is, in fact, the fundamental necessity for survival. A person chooses weakness by abstaining from food, while finding his true strength in God.

Giving is also weakness. One of the greatest Christian paradoxes is the following: Give and you shall receive. Rationally, the more you give away, the less you have. However, when a person chooses to go the way that seems weak and to give, they will gain.

Finally, prayer is weakness. Instead of relying on his own strength, a person wastes time that can be spent working, for prayer. By this he claims that he can do nothing in his own strength and God must help.

In all these acts of weakness, a person makes God and his truth his strength. In Song of Songs the wilderness experience causes the lover to lean on her beloved and find strength in him.

"Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved?" Song of Songs 8:5

When we choose the way of the wilderness, we find our strength in God. In him we live, breath and have our being.