Wilderness: The Place of Meeting God
contributed by Berry Hudson
It can be hard to have an important conversation in our world. Maybe you live in a noisy house full of kids. Maybe your college dorm is always buzzing with activity. Maybe you live in an apartment where every sound seems to travel through the walls. And if the people around you aren't distracting you, your phone probably is. We carry a small source of noise with us everywhere we go. The moment there is an empty space in the day, we can fill it with scrolling, messages, podcasts, news, or entertainment….
When You Find Yourself in a Spiritual Wilderness
contributed by Berry Hudson
Our surroundings have a big impact on us.
When I was setting up our counseling office, I wanted to make sure the space was calm, quiet, and comfortable. It needed to communicate a sense of peace—a place that allowed people to talk about things that are sometimes very difficult.
I wanted the surroundings to send a message:
“This is a good place to say what is important.”
As I write this, I’m about 100 yards from a large home improvement warehouse. It’s always busy with people investing time and money in the paint, shrubs, flooring, and countless other things that make up the spaces where they live.
We communicate a lot through the spaces and places that matter most to us.
That got me thinking about another kind of place: the (desert) wilderness….
Blooming in the Desert Wild
contributed by Berry Hudson
One of the more popular things to photograph is desert flowers. Those unique plants have found a way to survive and bloom in extreme conditions. In fact, it’s where they bloom that creates fascination. Watered and cultivated plants in a greenhouse can be beautiful, but it’s no surprise that the right conditions produce good results. The desert flower, however, has life and beauty in a place where it appears that it just shouldn’t exist.
One of the main themes of the Bible is life in the desert, or wilderness. From the points of God creating our world and throughout the story of how he is redeeming it, the desert, the wilderness, is a surprisingly important place…
God Groans, Hope Heals
contributed by Jacqueline Larraga
It is comforting to me that God the Spirit, who has command of every language, groans for his children to God the Father, to God the Son. He is groaning for a believing family as they sit, still reeling with the unexpectedness and depth of their loss, groaning with them as they grieve.
As I have walked with my own family and friends and also with women in the counseling space this past week, I’ve been especially mindful to ask God to work and will and, yes, intercede for them because I am again reminded of how often I do not “know what to pray for as I ought.” And I am asking him to do things in them that will be light to them when it is very dark…
Easter Hope in the Arghandab Valley—A reflection on Psalm 121
contributed by Reggie Fuller
Every year around this time, my mind drifts to the celebrations of Holy Week that I’ve experienced. Especially the one where my life was being threatened. I, along with a small contingent from my infantry unit, had been on patrol for about a week in the Arghandab Valley in Afghanistan. As the sun began to rise on that Easter morning, I thought of my wife and knew that she would be driving to church to rejoice in the risen Christ. I wanted to be home. I was nearing the end of a lengthy military career. I was weary and anxious. I was ready for the next installment of God’s plan for my life.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?” Psalm 121:1
In a place like the Arghandab Valley, the hills are not just scenery. They are places of vigilance, danger, and memory. You scan them because you have to. You remember what came from them. Peril is both expected and yet still unexpected. Pilgrims heading to Jerusalem could certainly relate to threats, and the Psalm meets us right there, not by denying fear but by redirecting it…
On Pollen and Humility. Or, How I Learned the Truth of 1 Peter 5:3-8 the Hard Way
contributed by Jacqueline Larraga
It has been almost twenty-five years since I lived in seminary housing at Southeastern (SEBTS) in Wake Forest, North Carolina. I was not the student in those days, but I was learning a lot. It must have been this time of the year because I remember walking to the playground with my blonde pig-tailed two-year-old and being baffled that the metal slide was covered in yellow dust. “Is there a sulfur plant near here?” Ahhhh… the introduction of pollen to a native Texan who grew up wondering what all those allergy med commercials on TV were for. “Northerners who aren’t as tough as we are, I suppose.” Ahem. The ignorance of youth.
I wish my ignorance and arrogance were limited to my lack of understanding of spring allergens. (And sulfur plants undoubtedly.) But, of course, they weren’t. I was in the midst of a long season of confusing suffering. A foundational belief that made my suffering more acute was a misunderstanding of the way God works in the world. I had thought that if I was a “good girl,” things would go well for me. I thought that’s how God treated people. I was not unexposed to suffering as a child, but it was really easy for me to interpret people’s suffering through the lens of what I perceived as their failure. I aimed to do better and assumed I would receive better. I was both ignorant and arrogant…
Hope and Anticipation
contributed by Berry Hudson
Do you enjoy looking forward to things? Maybe it’s the anticipation of going to a restaurant you have heard is really good or visiting a new city or a national park you have never seen before. It can be a lot of fun to go “all in" on anticipation. You look at the menu before you visit the restaurant to see what you might order, or you look up all the sites you might visit at the new destination. It is not a coincidence that we do this. Neurological research shows that there is a unique “anticipatory dopamine” release when we look forward to something. This “feel good” part of our brain chemistry means that looking forward to something causes us to experience pleasure as we anticipate pleasure. This effect can be so powerful that Seven Habits of Highly Effective People author Stephen Covey would organize his family life so that they would all consistently have some anticipated fun event to anticipate. This was not by accident. He knew the power it could have to create positive experiences and motivation in those whom he loved. To cultivate a positive anticipation means we can turn a fun day into a week of excitement. There is a lot to like about this life strategy. God has clearly designed us to be people who live in anticipation of good things. In fact, it’s hard to think about life in a way where we don’t look forward to things in some way.
In Praise of Love and Fear
contributed by Berry Hudson
I lived for many years in a beach town. One of the constant warnings local officials gave to those who wanted to go for a swim in the ocean was to beware of rip currents. These strong currents were common with certain weather conditions and could carry a swimmer far off the coast despite the swimmer’s best efforts to swim against the current. Ironically, it was a healthy examination of a swimmer’s fear that was the difference between life and death. A well-used fear of these currents prepared swimmers to know that if they were caught in a rip tide, then they needed to think clearly enough to resist the natural inclination to swim toward the shore—useless against a powerful tide—and instead swim parallel to shore and out of the deadly current. How a swimmer dealt with the frightening experience of getting caught in danger determined everything.
Fear is never an enjoyable thing to experience in life. Physical danger aside, when it is the fear of some unsettling circumstance or the fear of losing a valued relationship, we don’t like it. When we are in the midst of fear, the natural reaction we have is to make it go away as quickly as possible. We look for safer ground. However, there is a redemptive way to use the fear we experience.