’Up From The Wilderness’

‘Up From The Wilderness’

Who is this coming up from the wilderness, Leaning upon her beloved?

Song of Solomon 8:5

Christ takes us a long way from our beginnings. As we consider this highly poetic description of the Church, the Bride of Christ, we observe that she is ‘coming up from the wilderness.’ This is the wild and spiritually hostile environment from which she originates. We recognize from all else we find in Scripture that the culture and agenda of the world are utterly opposed to God. They are also opposed to anything that will draw our hearts out after God. Just as the wilderness in the natural sense is full of pitfalls, predators, and potential catastrophes, so in a spiritual sense the world in which we live is full of things which will bring us to spiritual disaster. It is out of this morass that Christ is delivering us. He is bringing us, ‘up from the wilderness.’ Hence, we find ourselves farther and farther out of step with our culture and environment. The world simply fails to offer us any real satisfaction. No amount of money, or thrill, or diversion, no matter how temporarily satisfying it is, will truly meet our deepest needs. This is ‘the wilderness’ from which we are coming. As we look around us today, let us perceive accurately the emptiness of this waste howling wilderness in which we find ourselves, and out of which Christ is bringing us. This world is not home for us. We are ‘coming up from the wilderness.’

O, Christ, our Great Deliverer,
We rejoice that You have redeemed us from destruction.
We praise You that You will lead us farther and farther away
from this hostile world unto our heavenly home.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning