40 Days in the Desert: A Lenten Journey

Read: Psalm 63:1-8 Psalms 63 | NIV Bible | YouVersion Are you thirsty for God?   I mean really thirsty?   Tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth thirsty?   Far too often we get comfortable.   We have a shelf full of Bibles.   Podcasts and Bible studies at our fingertips.   Praise and worship music at the touch of a button.   The next Christian conference is just around the corner.   We have access to so much that we begin to take it for granted. But while all those things are good, they are not God Himself.   When was the last time you just sat in His presence?   When was the last time you soaked in His love?   When was the last time you gazed at His beauty and beheld His glory? David cried out, “Oh God, my soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water…. I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night.” Remember that while Christian books and wo...

Read: Psalm 32:7   Psalms 32 | NIV Bible | YouVersion The desert is full of contrasts.   It’s blazing hot during the day, but the temperatures drop to freezing cold when the sun sets.   It’s a barren place, yet it’s full of resources: minerals and metals.   It’s harsh and empty and barren, but at the same time full of hidden life and beauty, if we will take the time to look for it. For example, tiny birds carve out holes in the giant cacti and build for themselves a nest, right in the midst of all the thorns and prickles!   What warns other creatures to stay away becomes a haven of safety and rest for these little birds. God promises to be our hiding place, our shelter in the midst of the harshness of the elements.   I love how the Psalmist puts it: “you surround me with songs of deliverance.”   What a beautiful picture of God’s grace in the middle of our desert journey.   He becomes our hiding place, and there in the middle of the desolat...

Read: Psalm 29   Psalms 29 | NIV Bible | YouVersion Today’s Scripture reading reminds us of the awesome power of the Lord our God, reflected in His control over nature.   At the opening of His mouth, His voice echoes like thunder.   It can split the tallest, strongest tree.   It can shake the mountains.   It can send lightning flashing across the sky.   It can make the desert quake. Think of it!   At His word, all of creation came into being.   And at His word, it can all be destroyed.   And remember that this is the same power that raised Christ from the dead.   Romans 8:11 says, “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” We serve a mighty God, and He is able to do infinitely more than we can ask or even imagine for us because He loves us.   What a promise!   What a hop...

Read: Job 38   Job 38 | NIV Bible | YouVersion Today’s passage comes when, after listening to Job question God why he had to suffer so many things when as far as he knew, he had done nothing wrong, and had been righteous in honoring God in all his ways, God answers. He shows His infinite superiority, knowledge, and wisdom by pointing out how little Job, and really, all of us, know about the world God created and how it works. In verse 26, God asks, “Who makes the rain fall on barren land, in a desert where no one lives?”   The answer, of course, is only God can do this!   Read through this passage, and worship our awesome and amazing Creator God who sets our universe in order.   He and He alone is worthy of all our praise and worship.   Allow this passage of Scripture, reminding us of how small and limited our understanding of His Creation and His ways is, to bring you to a place of worship for our great God!   Listen:  Chris Tomlin - I Sta...

Read: Job 1 Job 1 | NIV Bible | YouVersion Talk about your bad days!   In a matter of moments, Job lost everything he had—cattle, sheep, camels, servants, and even all his children.   Marauders came from the desert and attacked his flocks and herds.   A windstorm blew in from the desert and destroyed the house where his children were gathered.   I can’t even imagine the devastation he must have felt! I don’t know about you, but I have no idea how I would react under those circumstances.   I do know that I have whined and complained over far less.   Yet, Job fell to the ground and worshipped the Lord, acknowledging that God had given him all he had, and that God had the right to take it all away. Are you able to praise the Lord in spite of your troubles?   Can you acknowledge His sovereignty and His right to do what He pleases?   Do you trust that God is good, even when it feels like He is allowing bad things to happen?   What would it...

Read: 2 Chronicles 20   2 Chronicles 20 | NIV Bible | YouVersion Israel was in trouble!   The armies of surrounding nations banded together and declared war on them.   Already, they were marching through the desert, quickly approaching Jerusalem. The people panicked.   Even the king Jehoshaphat was terrified.   But the king did something right.   He went to the Lord, begging for guidance.   And the Lord answered.   He told Jehoshaphat, “Don’t be afraid or discouraged.   Go out against them tomorrow, for the Lord is with you.” And the next day, the king appointed singers to walk ahead of the army, singing to the Lord and praising Him, singing, “Give thanks to the Lord; his faithful love endures forever!” Can you imagine?   No military general in his right mind would send the choir into battle before sending in the infantry!   This was an unheard of strategy!   But God honored the faith of the Israelites.   As soon...

Read: 1 Kings 19   1 Kings 19 | NIV Bible | YouVersion Elijah had come to the end of his strength.  After an epic spiritual victory on Mount Carmel, during which he called down fire from heaven and put the priests and prophets of the false god Baal to shame, Queen Jezebel vowed to kill Elijah.  And so he fled into the desert. Discouragement often sets in after a spiritual mountaintop experience like Elijah had, and it would be good for us to remember that.  But God is a very practical God.  He focused on meeting Elijah where he was, offering him both nourishment and rest.  God wasn’t done with Elijah yet.  He had more for him to do. Elijah hid in a cave and allowed himself to wallow in self-pity.  He allowed his situation to overwhelm him.  He forgot that God had just rained fire down from heaven.  He forgot that God had soundly defeated the false god Baal.  He forgot that there were others who worshipped and served the One ...

Read: 1 Samuel 23 1 Samuel 23 | NIV Bible | YouVersion As we read through today’s Scripture passage, we see that David was being relentlessly hunted by King Saul.  He fled into the desert, but even there, King Saul and his armies continued to pursue him.  It seemed like there was no escape and no end in sight. God had already chosen and anointed David to be the next king.  He had already helped him to defeat Goliath.  We can see the hand of God on David’s life.  But God still allowed this brutal season of living life as a fugitive to drag on and on.  Why? Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?  Why does God allow His children to suffer?  Perhaps in David’s case, God was preparing him for the crown.  He was refining him in the desert.  David became known as a man after God’s own heart.  Think of that!  What an incredible description! Somehow, David learned to be totally dependent on God, to rely on Him...

  Read: Deuteronomy 32   Deuteronomy 32 | NIV Bible | YouVersion Israel had spent 40 years in the desert, and God had been with them, providing for them every step of the way.  Moses knew his time was coming to an end.  God had already told him that he would not enter the Promised Land.  So he prepares a final message to the people of Israel before handing over leadership to Joshua. He sang this song, recorded for us in Deuteronomy 32, before the entire assembly of Israel.  It was a record of their 40 years desert journey, remembering everything God had done for them, faithfully meeting their every need, despite their frequent sin and faithlessness. It can be helpful for us to keep record of God’s faithfulness throughout our lives.  When we find ourselves in those desert seasons, we may need to remind ourselves of what God has done for us.  If you haven’t already made a habit of keeping record of what God has done for you, begin now....

Read:  Deuteronomy 11:24   Deuteronomy 11 | NIV Bible | YouVersion What a beautiful promise God gave to the Israelites!  Wherever you set your foot, the land will be yours.  God has given His children this promise.  He has saved us and called us, not so that we can sit back and enjoy the blessings ourselves, but so that we would partner with Him in what He is doing around the world, expanding His kingdom! Sometimes we take for granted the easy access to the gospel.  We don’t appreciate the freedom to worship and pray.  We don’t value our Bibles that are readily available to us.  And we sit and take for granted all of this.  But there are people who have never heard the name of Jesus.  There are people who have not had a single verse of the Bible translated into their language.  There are people who are dying having never heard the Good News of Jesus. The Father promises that wherever we set our foot, the land is ours.  ...

Read: Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-15; Hebrews 12:2   Numbers 21 | NIV Bible | YouVersion Ungrateful!  The people of Israel got impatient on their seemingly endless journey through the desert.  They forgot all the blessings God had rained down on them and began to grumble and complain.  Sometimes we wonder how they could see so many miracles and still complain.  But don’t we do the same?  We forget the gift of life.  We forget the roof over our heads, the clothes on our backs, the kitchens full of food to eat, and clean water to drink at the twist of a faucet.  Most of all, we forget what Jesus did for us on the cross, when He suffered and died to take away our sins so that we could live eternally in heaven with Him.  We don’t deserve any of these blessings, not. a. single. one. The desert was full of dangers—starvation, lack of water, snakes, scorpions, sun stroke during the day, hypothermia at night.  Yet God had protected them from...

Read: Numbers 13-14   Numbers 13 | NIV Bible | YouVersion I remember when my children were little, going to a swimming pool.   This particular pool didn’t have a kiddie pool or water shallow enough for my two preschoolers.   So, we stood in the pool, and held out our arms for our kids to jump from the edge of the pool into the safety of our arms.   Our son immediately took the plunge, laughing and splashing in the cool, refreshing water.   But our daughter stood on the edge, so desperately wanting to jump in, but for some reason, unable to overcome her fear and just trust us to catch her.   She got so frustrated with her inability to conquer her fears that she stood on the edge and threw a little temper tantrum, but we never were able to get her to jump into the pool that day, even after watching her little brother jump safely into our arms multiple times.   I can’t remember if she ever did get into the pool that day. In today’s passage, the ch...

Read: Exodus 33 Exodus 33 | NIV Bible | YouVersion Moses would meet with God face to face at the Tent of Meeting, as a man meets with his friend.  Was Moses perfect, to have found such favor with God?  No, he was still a man, just like we are.  But God chose Moses, and Moses in turn depended on God with all his heart for wisdom, direction, strength, and everything he needed for the massive job of leading this huge assembly of people through the desert.  Moses enjoyed this privilege that none of the other Israelites could experience, friendship with God. Today, we are blessed in that each and every one of us who calls himself a follower of Christ has been called to be God’s friend.  In John 15:15-16a, Jesus said, “I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves.  Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything my Father told me.  You didn’t choose me.  I chose you.” And one of the marks of our friendship...

  Read: Exodus 32   Exodus 32 | NIV Bible | YouVersion No sooner had the people of Israel met with God, received His laws, and promised to obey them, they then turned around and broke His law in spectacular form! And they were led by Moses’ own brother, Aaron, who had seen all of God’s miracles firsthand, from the staff turning into a snake to the ten plagues that decimated Egypt, to the parting of the Red Sea allowing them to pass through on dry land.   He had witnessed God providing water in the desert.   He had eaten the manna God sent from heaven each day.   Yet, he took the Israelites’ gold and fashioned it into a statue of a calf, then set up an altar before it for the people to worship. One of our greatest temptations is to try to mold God into an image that is more to our liking.   We try to put God in a box, making it easier to ignore His commands when they’re inconvenient or unpleasant.   While we may not create an actual physical idol ...

Read: Exodus 19-20 Exodus 19 | NIV Bible | YouVersion   Sometimes God chooses the desert seasons of our lives to call us out, set us apart, and meet with us, so that we are free from distraction, and our focus is singular.   If you’ve ever visited a desert, your focus becomes a laser beam: there is a single all-encompassing need: water.   Without it, you will die. The desert seasons of our lives can be like that as well. The spiritual dryness carries you to a place of singular focus: your desperate, all-consuming need for God. Have you ever been there, where you feel like if God doesn’t show up, you’ll just die; you’re so desperate for His manifest presence? The Israelites set aside three days to prepare themselves to meet with God.   They needed to prepare themselves both physically as well as spiritually.   For three days, they turned away from their ordinary daily routines, and focused on preparing themselves to meet with a holy God.   They washed th...

Read: Exodus 17:8-16 Exodus 17 | NIV Bible | YouVersion   God had a purpose in leading the Israelites through the desert.   For over 400 years, they had been slaves in Egypt.   They knew no other way of life.   They were used to taking orders, living in defeat, heads hanging low. But they were no longer slaves! God had brought them out of Egypt, but He still had to get Egypt out of them! In today’s reading, the Israelites were faced with their first real challenge, and it was a doozy!   They were attacked by the Amalekites.   The Amalekites were a fierce warrior tribe of nomads who made their living by raiding settlements and carrying off stolen plunder.   They were known for their fierce cruelty.   They killed for pleasure.   These people fought for a living.   And here were the Israelites, fresh out of slavery, still living in many ways with their slave mentality, prey ripe for the picking. God knew that before His people recei...

  Read: Exodus 17:1-7   Exodus 17 | NIV Bible | YouVersion   What is your first reaction when troubles arise?   Even though the people of Israel had seen God’s hand moving on their behalf in miraculous ways time and time again, at the first sign of trouble, their immediate reaction was to complain about their problem instead of praying. Now, it’s true that some problems can be solved by with careful thought and action, but some problems can only be solved by prayer. When you run out of water in the middle of a desert, well, that’s a prayer kind of problem. When we worry and complain, we only serve to stress ourselves out even more as we focus on the problem itself. But when we pray, we set our focus on the One who is able to solve our problems. Who would ever think of such a crazy solution to their problem?   Just hit this rock with a stick.   What kind of a solution is that?   But this is where the presence of the All-Powerful God comes an...

Read: Exodus 16 Exodus 16 | NIV Bible | YouVersion   Have you ever developed selective memory syndrome? The people of Israel did.  They continued in their journey in the desert, and when food became scarce, they complained to Moses, “If only we were back in Egypt!  There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.”  How quickly and conveniently they forgot their years of bondage and slavery under the cruel yoke of the Egyptians. Yet despite their grumbling, ungrateful hearts, God continued to meet their every need.  He provided manna, an unknown substance that appeared on the ground every morning and melted away like the dew as the sun rose higher in the sky.  For 40 years the Israelites survived on this unknown substance, and it seems like it provided everything they needed in terms of nutritional value too.  They were literally eating bread from...

Read: Exodus 15:22-27 Exodus 15 | NIV Bible | YouVersion It’s so easy to grumble and complain when things don’t go your way.   And that’s precisely what the Israelites did when they arrived, after a 3-day journey through the desert, at the oasis of Merah.   They were hot, tired, and thirsty.   Their water was running out. There before them was an oasis, but as they rushed to drink and fill their water bottles, they discovered that the water was too bitter to drink! Life is full of such disappointments.   You didn’t get the promotion you’ve been working so hard for.   The car breaks down—again!   Your spouse forgot your birthday.   Something suspicious came up during your last medical checkup, and the dr. says it doesn’t look good. Suddenly, everything comes screeching to a halt, and you are faced with your own bitter waters of Merah. What do you do when you find yourself facing disappointment?   It is in that moment, perched at the edge of...

Read: Exodus 13:17-Exodus 14 Exodus 13 | NIV Bible | YouVersion God used Moses to return to Egypt and, eventually, after forcing Egypt to its knees through ten terrible plagues that brought Egypt to complete and utter ruin, lead the Israelites out of the land of their 400-year bondage into a new-found freedom.   What a procession that must have been! Can you imagine the joy of being set free after generations of enslavement? And God graced them with a physical manifestation of His presence, leading them as a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire at night.   If ever they should doubt that God’s hand was in all this, all they had to do was look up to that clear assurance of His constant presence.   While today we don’t have the pillar of cloud or fire, God still provides His children with the constant assurance of His presence with us.   He’s given us His Word, in which we can find an abiding source of comfort, wisdom, and assurance.   And He’s placed...

  Read: Exodus 3   Exodus 3 | NIV Bible | YouVersion What a study in contrasts Moses’ life is!  He went, in a matter of moments, from living like a prince in the palace, with servants at his beck and call, enjoying all the best things that Egypt had to offer, to the life of a lowly shepherd, having to do everything for himself, and enduring the hardships of life in the desert.  Years passed.  I wonder if Moses gave up any ideas he may have had to be the great hero, to lead his people to freedom.  Maybe he thought that his sin had disqualified him from fulfilling the plans God had for him. But God had not forgotten Moses, and He had not forgotten the Israelites!   He heard their cries of anguish as they suffered at the cruel hands of the Egyptian slave drivers.   And so, one day, Moses had a dramatic encounter with God in the form of a burning bush. Sometimes God chooses to speak to us through unexpected sources too.   Are we willing to tu...

Read: Exodus 2 Exodus 2 | NIV Bible | YouVersion After Joseph became Pharaoh’s prime minister and brought his family to Egypt, Jacob’s sons and their families became so numerous and their influence so powerful that the Egyptians began to fear them, and so they forced the Israelites into slavery. Four hundred long years of cruel servitude passed. But God had not forgotten Israel.   He had not forgotten the promises He had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to make them into a great nation and to give them the land of Canaan as their own, to bless them so that they, in turn, could be a blessing to all the peoples of the world.   God heard the cries of His chosen people as prayed for deliverance. When the Egyptians were so fearful of the potential strength of the Israelites that they were murdering all their baby boys, God miraculously spared the life of a little Levite boy.   His mother Jochebed hid him for as long as she could, but as her baby grew, she knew she wou...

  Read: Genesis 37:18-36; Genesis 39-41; Genesis 45; Genesis 50:14-21   Genesis 37 | NIV Bible | YouVersion I know today’s reading is long, even when you’re just reading the highlights, but what a story !   The story of Joseph begins in a pit in the desert and ends in Pharaoh’s palace! Have you ever found yourself on the wrong end of the stick, so to speak?   Feeling like your situation just isn’t fair, and that you didn’t do anything to deserve this?   Well, that was Joseph’s life for years! Scripture isn’t clear on this, but sometimes when I read Joseph’s story, I think he was a show off young punk who delighted in waving his favored position in front of his brothers’ noses.   At other times, I think Joseph didn’t do anything wrong, and the fault for his brothers’ animosity lay solely at their father’s feet because of his obvious favoritism.   Sometimes I’m somewhere in between, thinking how foolish and oblivious he was to his family’s feelin...

Read: Genesis 22 Genesis 22 | NIV Bible | YouVersion Finally!   After 25 long years of waiting for God to fulfill His promise, Isaac, the child of promise was born!   By this time, Abraham was 100 years old!   Can you imagine how thrilled Abraham and Sarah were?   How they must have doted on that boy! Then one day God spoke to Abraham and asked him to sacrifice his son, the very son for whom Abraham had waited for for 25 years!   I can’t even imagine what must have gone through Abraham’s mind!   But the Bible simply tells us that the next morning, Abraham gathered everything he needed together, and set off into the wilderness with his beloved son of promise, Isaac. Think of what that journey must have been like: a three-day journey into the desert, and with every step, Abraham could hardly breathe.   Sacrifice his son? Would God actually allow him to kill the hope through whom all God’s promises were to come? Or would God raise Isaac from the d...

  Read: Genesis 16:1-15   Genesis 16 | NIV Bible | YouVersion When Abraham was 75 years old and childless, God promised to make him into a great nation, telling him, “all the families on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:1-3).   It would be 25 lo-oo-ong years before Abraham would see even the smallest hint of that promise being fulfilled, with the birth of his son Isaac. In this passage, we see that 10 years had passed since God made that promise to Abraham, and there were still no children!   Sarah decided to take matters into her own hands, impatient that she had not yet seen God fulfill His promises to them.   So, she gave Abraham her maid servant to bear children for her.   But with this lack of faith came some serious problems.   The lines between servant and family member became blurred.   Sarah became jealous, and ultimately blamed all this on Abraham—even though it was her idea in the first place!   This is what wil...

Read: Genesis 12:1-9  Genesis 12 | NIV Bible | YouVersion When God called Abram to leave his home and family in the land of Ur of the Chaldeans, God told him that He would make Abram into a great nation. God’s plan was to create a nation set apart to lead the world back to the God who created and loved them.   God promised Abram, “I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.... All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”   This sounds like a wonderful promise, but it wasn’t easy.   God asked Abram to leave the world he had known and journey into the unknown.   God didn’t even tell him where he was going.   He had to simply to trust and obey. And so Abram set out on his long journey of faith into the unknown.   There in the wilderness, God met him, leading and guiding him all the way to Canaan.   God met Abram again, promising, “I will give this land to your descendants.”   And there, Abram built ...