The Way in the Desert

My local gym usually has two Brazilian channels playing on its television in the mornings. One channel often shows a soccer game from the night before, while the other one airs documentaries about outdoor sports, usually surfing.

But this morning water was nowhere in sight on the outdoor sports channel because the documentary featured a paraglider over the Sahara desert. A car eventually came to pick him up and got stuck in the sand, to which I said to myself "what made them think they could drive in the desert?" But, moments later they were unstuck and driving on the "road," which looked just like the desert itself. No wonder they got stuck!

On Sunday mornings we sing songs in Portuguese that are both new to us completely or have familiar music, but often with different words. This past Sunday one of our worship songs was Waymaker, but in Portuguese it's called "Caminho no Deserto," or "way in the desert." And while seeing this car on television spinning its tires in deep sand, because you can hardly tell where the way begins and the desert ends, I said to myself, "that's just like God, isn't it?" He truly is our way in the desert, but it's not always obvious where his way is leading or where it ends and the desert begins. I suppose we just have to follow his lead.

I've never been on a surfboard and growing up in Kansas never saw surfing in person, but as a family we took a little summer trip to a beach known for surfing. Our first day things were calm with manageable waves and the surf schools taking out their students, usually kids, to learn the basics. But on day two the wind howled and the waves were so relentless that it was hardly safe to swim near the beach, let alone surf. 

I thought of that story from the Gospels about Jesus calming the sea. Mark includes it right after Jesus' parable of the mustard seed, which seems pretty unfair. The disciples were fearing for their lives and didn't even know what to ask of Jesus, but they woke him up in hopes of something, anything. And then he calmed the waves. I don't know if they were more or less scared after his stern rebuke against the sea. They asked themselves, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him?" 

I imagine the disciples that day were discouraged that they lacked even the faith of a mustard seed. They didn't realize how big God is, and, as Larry Caldwell says, the bigger we realize God to be, the more trustworthy he becomes. 

Lately, I can feel my wheels spinning in deep desert sand, calculating taxes, overwhelmed with the challenges of continuing to teach in a new language, and struggling to build a masters and doctoral program with few resources. Unbeknownst to me the way in the desert is right there next to me…so close. I just need to trust God's way, and he's a big God—a trustworthy God. He's the master of the sea, the desert, and everything in between.