Sabbatical Shorts 2 - Stay in the desert

A year on from a Sabbatical break, here are some selected notes from my journal during that time which may be of help to others, and are certainly a reminder to me. Some is in the form of more reflective thought, as below, other passages are simple meditations from scripture.


Don't stay in the desert.
The desert is a place to leave as quickly as possible. A place from which to run for safety, into comfort, welfare and water.
But I need to stay in the desert.
Those who stay in the desert learn to live in the desert, learn to live with new intention and focus as desert dwellers.

Living in the city, I have everything I need on tap, all the time. A constant flow into my life and soul, a wide bandwidth, day and night.
Noise, people, ambition, tasks, rest, comfort, food, friends. All good in their way, but each numbing a deeper need, each hit requiring a greater dose. Adrenaline overload, life overdose. Nerves snapping  taut. Body bone achingly weary.
So much input but no filling. A great inner emptiness. Longing for the authentic life, and wondering how I got so lost along the way. Like Adam in the garden, hiding in his nakedness, I have a foundational need to truly draw near to Jesus, to know him, to be seen by him, to find the new, old living way, the pathway I have lost.

And so I need to stay in the desert.
In the desert, at first, there is no pathway to discern, no aid to support and prop me up.
In the desert I must be intentional or I shall die.
In the desert I have to urgently find a source of refreshment or I will not survive the heat of the day.
Here my every endeavour is subjected and ordered around this one thing, this great need for water and shade.

This sabbatical is a desert. At first a harsh, dry landscape, the people and patterns of life stolen away like a mirage. An endless horizon, stretching towards a distant date with no shelter or covering. An exposure of my inner world and longings to a penetrating sun glare. There is no hiding place, and yet it is good for me to stay here in the desert.

Here in the desert I encounter the one who promises streams in such barrenness. Here in the wilderness I stumble towards the one who draws water from the rock, and grows a plant to shade me from the noon day sun.

Here in the desert I realise that I am better by far to be stumbling in the footsteps of Elijah and Hagar, rather than living for the city like Lot. Heart and soul shrinking, not in the parched heat of an arid landscape, but amongst the obesely strained overload of city life. No longer.

So, to the Saviour who spent forty days here, I come. Walking with him, learning from him. Moving from surviving with him to leaning on him, growing with him. And as I learn desert life, the song of David in Psalm 63 is my soundtrack.

'O God you are my God, earnestly I seek you.
My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you.
In a dry and weary land where there is no water.'

Here in the desert I will find a sanctuary. Here in the desert I will behold again. Here in the desert all my cravings and instincts will be re-calibrated. My soul will once again be satisfied as with the richest of foods.
Here in the apparently inhospitable desert, there is a table laden under the shelter of his wings, and I hear the sound of my own voice, weak and wiry at first, as I begin to sing for joy again.

Whatever you do, stay in the desert.