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Foreword
(Part 1)
To all my sisters in the wilderness, I speak a word for you: the SON will SHINE for you.
Listen to Foreword (Part 1)
In the beginning of my struggle was the word: the spoken word; the written word; the psalmed word. Something happened. Then I heard the mimicked word as mocked word until the TRUE WORD was all but forgotten… and then, somehow, faith carried me – until I forgot to believe. I had vested my soul in people and been exiled; vested it in things that broke down; and bound it in a wilderness where only God could find me. I had forgotten how to do well: to trust in the LORD to keep my feet from falling. I had looked for a stairwell in the basement of reality. I forgot which way was up. Was I a lost soul? Some days I did not know if I had a soul at all – but I was terrified of losing it if I did.
Whatever I knew about religion was a minefield of crippling absolutes. It damned or sainted you with no place in between. All I knew was that I was no saint. So, what was in it for me? I rewound the pages of my life. How would I know I had found the answer when I did not even know what I was looking for? Delving into the past brought me nothing but tears. Yes, depression hurts; but, how did I get here? People said it was all in my mind. That may have been, but the mind was building something on the outside. I needed a new spirit [1].
It is written that God will do a new thing, make a way in the wilderness, and bring forth rivers in the desert [2]. When you step out on faith for any journey, one of the most important lessons to learn about God is that He is a God of provision [3]. The word provision likely brings to mind images of food and drink. While God is able to prepare a table for you, His provision is not limited to what satisfies your natural body. It must be so since it is written that man shall not live by bread alone [4]. If only repast was required to please God, you would have no need of anything else when your soul hungers and thirsts.
The longing soul seeks water that is beyond any dug well. However, as the body’s natural need for water can sometimes be mistaken for a want of food, so it is with the spirit. It may take effort on your part to recognize the difference between natural and spiritual hunger and thirst. For this reason, some people spend considerable time searching for meaning in things that only lead to confusion, or “looking for love in all the wrong places.” It is because a spiritual void manifesting a hunger and thirst for the Spirit of God can be misread by carnality, causing the person to attempt filling the spiritual void through channels of by the human (carnal, fleshly) senses.
People are typically taught from childhood how to use their natural (carnal) senses to interpret the world around them. Maturity is a result of exercising the senses as with the training of muscles, that they may be strong by reason of use and able to discern both good and evil [5].
[1] Psalm 51:10
[2] Isaiah 43:19
[3] Jehovah-Jireh: The Lord who provides. Philippians 4:19
[4] Matthew 4:4
[5] Hebrews 5:14
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