Desert Worship

I had stared at the Facebook icon for weeks, May – Month of Prayer.   I desire to grow in the area of prayer, but for some reason anxiety about pursuing the subject rises in my throat.  Perhaps the disappointment over unanswered prayers or answers that were the opposite to what I prayed  is what had me tiptoeing around a monthly focus on prayer.  The hesitation is what finally convinced me that perhaps this was the very subject needed for study. 

At the library, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Phillip Yancey is checked out along with Drawing Near by John Bevere.  An online friend recommends A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul Miller.  Psalm 107 and the Lord’s Prayer become Scriptures that lead.  Slowly I have been seeking, striving to grow in this area. 

Yet I have felt empty, a soul wandering in a desert of quiet.  Silence has become a cloud between heaven and my heart.  The summer heat has matched my desert wanderings – hot.  Lethargy creeps and the energy to pray is nowhere to be found.  Amazingly in the oasis of Psalm 107 the words,  “He led them” keep a repeating refrain. 

I wonder how the children of Israel dealt with the heat of the desert as the Lord led them?  The image of the cloud that covered the tent of meeting and signaled when they should move and when they should camp keeps coming to mind.  How did the Israelites handle the days, weeks, months when the Lord stopped in one hot, dusty place?

Turning to Exodus 33:10 I read…

“Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshipped, each at the entrance to his tent.”

I’ve been wandering in the desert this past month focusing on prayer, seeking the consuming cloud of a fiery God.  The Israelites wandered in the desert with the visible presence of a this burning God. 

I read from Yancey’s book:

“I have learned to see prayer not as my way of establishing God’s presence, rather as my way of responding to God’s presence that is a fact whether or not I can detect it.”

God’s presence is all around me I simply need to respond.  I read in Yancey’s book about a man that had been married 65 years.  He compares his marriage relationship with the relationship he has with Father God. 

“Romance starts as a blazing bonfire…after a few decades it settles…like a heap of glowing coals…coals are good…you can roast marshmallows or warm your feet.  A different kind of companionship opens up.  ..in prayer…most of the time I persist because I value the relationship with God, just as I value my marriage.  I gratefully warm my feet by the fire.”

The heat continues to rise and I yield in faith waiting on the cloud to move.  I respond like the children of Israel when they see the cloud for my stop at the oasis of Psalm 107 has led me into Psalm 108:1.  I will stand here and worship until the cloud of His presence moves to the next place of worship. 

“My heart is steadfast, O God;

I will sing and make music with all my soul.”