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Can God Set a Table in Our Wilderness?

written by Michael McBane

Can God set a table in our wilderness? My answer is yes. Israel asked that but asked it in their rebellion and unbelief. Psalm78: 17 through 19. I ask it to build our hope. They asked it because they hoped for the food of their own desire. I ask it to uncover the possibility that our own desires rule us more then we think.Are we blinded by our desires so much that we incorporate them into the will of God? Are we willing to strain them in the blood of Christ and see if they remain?  It is odd that Israel pinned to make bricks when God finally delivered them from the labor of such. The stories that repeat themselves in the Bible continue to do so in disguise today. We still ask for the food of our own desires. We still ask for a Saul to lead us. Someone who stands head and shoulders above others. But is this what God has called us to? Is this why HE demanded that sin and the God’s of this world let us go by giving us His life? I say no and I say it without doubt. But we do not know anything else so instead of asking the Lord to take us to a land of promise we create promises with the wisdom contained in the sands of this world which we were delivered from. I am convinced and have always been so that there is something found in Christ and it may culminate in the here after but we can begin to cultivate it now. I say this because I have always carried this in me like a seed of life. It may be the gestation of the Christ within groaning for the fullness of God’s sons to come forth? In my idealistic youth I would go to a place that hosted a gathering of Christians with a certain expectation of something more, it was never there and often I was scolded for my loftiness. But I could not forget because my spirit turned within like a child. I could not forget because I have tasted something and I must proclaim it. I cannot live with less then I have known somehow.

Today I feel my life being tested by time as we know it. I ask am I merely extending a bridge towards eternal provision and hope contained in the reality of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost to those  younger then myself? I hope for more. I hope to hold something tangible in my hands that reveals God to this earth. It may be His power, the miracles or signs and wonders but it will be wrapped in His love and wisdom. It will not be controlled by the weights of unproductive fleshly desires. Some say move over it is time to let those with life and moxie to lead with a new sound. There is nothing new under the sun my friends. I gather the instruction of my days and echo this prayer. Psalm 90: 12, “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to Thee a heart of wisdom.” My presentation is then not to others it is before Thee. It is before God because if it cannot stand here is is not the wisdom I have gained from being with Him but from the schools of this earth that teach us to invest and build with our own desires in mind. God builds us within a framework that steps into and towards the heaven as He extends heaven to this earth to answer the prayer He prayed. May Your Kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven.

My motives are scrubbed raw as I examine my heart before God.

And I hear the Lord say: “The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree, he will grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still yield fruit in old age. They shall be full of sap and very green. To declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” Psalm 92: 12 through 15.

We are tested by the Lord until the appointed time. “Deal bountifully with Thy servant that I may live and keep Thy word.” Psalm 119: 17. “and that in Thy faithfulness Thou hast afflicted me.” Psalm 118:75. In our youth we rightfully so have aspirations that are fueled with a vigor that wains as we travel the roads of life. But I and others may seem dim in sight but I tell you we still see and we can speak of something beyond what you are entertaining but will you listen? 

Our hearts are interesting places that have more divisions, diversions and hiding places then we might like to know or admit to. God does not want us to fail nor be divided when we need to be whole... wholly focused on who He is at the time when all of life shouts at us with thoughts uncommon to us. So He is at times a great hunter who flushes out the foxes who come to steal the fruit of His love. We must be provoked to ask God to “search me and make sure there is no wicked way in me.”

I have days that seem to accumulate the waste of my inability to be at peace with the fact that God will bring to conclusion that which will glorify His name. He will not be diverted but He will go after the one who has drifted even slightly away from loving Him with all their heart, mind and soul. God will try our minds the words tells us so. Perhaps this is when we attempt ever so slightly to form Him to our need and desires and somehow twist that to be scriptural. You see from my perspective to treat Him as God does not dismantle the heart of His being our Father. Some have so accommodated their personal desires and weakness around the image of God as Father that they leave little to no room for the fact that He is God. They combine this with a twisted version of grace. Grace is the buffer that accommodates our humanity. Grace is the lap of God that invites us to a place that has no earthly form or reason. 

God is our maker. He is the potter who molds the clay. I though am convinced that we are not seen by Him as mere clay. We had a place with Him in the creation as life was placed in the eternal time of God. That place creates a longing in us I know of to return to Him, like a beating pulse that searches for life.

I get troubled when I feel less then who I feel I have been created to be. I want to spit nails at something that I think is fighting me or holding me back. I forget that God is a God of timing. Especially when time lingers for years on end without the result that has cast a shadow over my purpose. Some things just are not worth being troubled about. What will it resolve. My our quest must be in our trust that God has not left us nor forgotten us. He desires to see us fruitful and to see us blossom as sons and daughters. But since He is fully aware of how the enemy of His love works God will not allow us to be set up in places that will not bear fruit that truly glorifies His name. 

Paul told us that we go from hope to hope and glory to glory. We are being formed into the image of Christ. God is correcting our misconceptions so that we can find our rest in Him, in His love. And again I will go back to the theme I have been pounding on lately. We have not allowed His love to saturate us, we have lived in less then He intends.

First John does exhort us to grow up and move on from childish things. We linger far to long in places that serve our flesh. Our insecurities can divide us from building life together. Our mindsets that develop patterns that behold us to things rather then the value of the life of Christ in another do not inflate the life of God among us they short circuit its power among us by institutionalizing it, rendering it powerless in cookie cutter formations. The place we have in Christ proclaims the finished work of the cross and reveals that we live in the righteousness of Christ. Let us reveal God among us. Let us break bread house to house, life to life. Let us insure that there is no one with out among us. To do so will first awaken us to be deliberate in decisions that may alter who we are and how we live. But consider that when they waited in Acts an entire people group was misplaced and God accommodated them as no one was with out. Today is the day. Let us prepare.

Life has severely changed for almost everyone I know in the past five to ten years. So many live in the place of what happened? Could it be that God has saved us from something so devastating that these hindrances are row boats that have fallen from a sinking ship? Some can still buy their way into what appears to be the life of God but if money gets us there then something is wrong with this picture. So I conclude that appearances are not what they seem and we must watch our steps and how we make our plans. Henri Nouwan once said, that you cannot be lead out of the desert by someone who has never been there.

These are the days that are filled with privilege as God calls us aside to learn His ways and the intricate weave of His voice. Why is this? So that we can stand with HIm when all has fallen and men have lost heart and mind and there is none to deliver. Here we can say because we know more then knowledge we know Him come and see, come and taste the goodness of God. In the midst of tragic events we can bring life but only if we have today not been drawn away from it. Psalm 118: 8 and 9, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord Then to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord then to trust in princes.”

The days ahead may shock even the most astute men who seek God and think they have heard.

Even so I have reason to think that God is setting a table before us will we come to it or will we be distracted in things that speak of Him but leave Him little to no room to commune?