IN THE WILDERNESS

 

I learnt the other day about the spiritual concept of ‘wilderness’. Whereas the word usually refers to desert country, it has great religious significance as a place of segregation of “the righteous from the wicked and the position of the righteous man as a pilgrim and an outcast on the earth” (Hugh Nibley, “An Approach to the Book of Mormon”, p 135).

The Lord has used this method of segregation throughout history, think of the children of Israel and the scattering of the Ten Tribes.  This concept, however, is also prominent in the ancient Americas and its purpose is two-fold.

The word ‘wilderness’ occurs at least 336 times in the Book of Mormon. It connotes protection for the righteous from judgment that befalls the wicked and also purification and spiritual refinement of God’s people.

The most obvious example is that of Lehi and his colony who spent 8 years in the wilderness of the Arabian Peninsula, which even the hardened Bedouins avoid like the plague...detestable certainly describes the place in the eyes of Lehi's people, who 'murmured' bitterly at being led into such a hell." (Hugh Nibley, Lehi In the Desert, p 51).

At the end of his life Lehi called the deserts of Arabia “the wilderness of my afflictions” (2 Nephi 3:3) and at the same time he recounted how great things the Lord had done for his family in bringing them out of the land of Jerusalem and how merciful He had been (2 Nephi 1:1,4).

The wandering didn’t end there however. Just as soon as Lehi’s family landed in America, Nephi was commanded to take those who would go with him and ‘flee into the wilderness’ to escape his brothers who became the Lamanites (2 Nephi 5:5-7). Nephi’s brother Jacob called them “a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers….born in tribulation, in a wilderness….” (Jacob 7:26).

Alma identified the sacred purpose of the ‘wilderness experience’ when he said that ‘because of their isolation, God gave them special revelation, and glad tidings were given to them in plain terms that they cannot err’…and then he gave the reason: ”and this because of our being wanderers in a strange land; therefore we are thus highly favoured” (Alma 13:23).

Wilderness is, therefore, a place where the Lord puts His people to make them His own. It accomplishes the greatest purpose of teaching them absolute and complete dependence on God (Mosiah 4:21-30). Think of the children of Israel’s experience in the wilderness for forty years.

The more I read of this concept, the more I could see how this plays out in our individual lives in a modern-day setting.  Sometimes we are placed in a ‘wilderness’ of sorts where God can teach us without the influence of others or where we become totally dependent on God through a trial of our faith that is unique to us.

You will know you are in a wilderness if you feel isolated and alone because some experiences are meant to be this way for our greater connection with God.

Being in ‘wilderness’ is not for the faint hearted. It requires stretching, accepting, and enduring hardships but the benefits are enormous……The Lord usually puts us into this spiritual ritual to teach us who we are and who He is and to make us His own. It’s a lonely road but one on which you will meet God.

I met You on the lonely road

And heard You say to me:

You will ever be mine

If you walk with me.

 

Your presence enthralled me,

Your exquisite love nearly ripped me apart;

I walked away from all else

Just to have You in my heart.

 

I walk now with Your hand in mine

The lonely road paved with tears of love

Oh, if only everyone knew where to find You

And long for You to come!

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Artist Unknown)

IN THE HEART OF WILDERNESS

There lived on the fringes of Jerusalem in 600 BC a rich, bold and resourceful merchant, a God fearing man by the name of Lehi. This man, under God's direction prophesied of Jerusalem's demise and destruction, a city whose wickedness was so great that God did not only send one prophet to call them to repentance, but as many as seven, Lehi being among them as well as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Nahum, Habukkuk, Zephaniah and Zechariah.

Lehi's prophetic calling came in 600 B.C., a time in history when Jerusalem was flourishing not only in prosperity but also in idolatry, immorality and corruption. And simmering below the pulse of the industrious and prosperous Jerusalem lay political unrest which would ultimately punish Israel and enslave those who stoned the prophets. In 600 B.C. Jerusalem was under Babylonian domination. Sitting on Judah's throne was Zedekiah, an appointed puppet king, who unwisely with most of Judah's leadership, formed an alliance with Egypt with plans to overthrow the Babylonian rule. Jeremiah warned against this alliance knowing full well that Egyptians could not back their show of power with physical resources but Zedekiah refused to listen. When Lehi brought his message of doom prophesying that Jerusalem will be destroyed and its inhabitants carried away to Babylon (1 Nephi 1:13,18), the people were outraged and considered him along with Jeremiah and other prophets unpatriotic and guilty of treason. Their solution to this offence was that Lehi had to die (1 Nephi 1:20).

When the call came to leave Jerusalem and establish a colony of higher moral standards than the apostate Jerusalem, Lehi, not needing time to prepare, did not hasitate. The Lord had been preparing him his whole life for such an experience, both temporally and spiritually. According to His foresight, the Lord had strategically placed Lehi in the tribe of Manasseh, which of all tribes lived the farthest out in the desert, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Lehi, therefore became familiar with the dessert and as a merchant came to know the Egyptian culture. He had even given two of his sons Egyptian names and taught them to write in reformed Egyptian. Lehi was also spiritually sound. He knew full well what the God of Israel had done for his people and the wilderness they had to traverse to get to the promised land and he taught this to his children. Nephi often recounted Israel's wilderness experience to his brethren to bring them to the remembrance of their roots and to give them courage. : "Nephi consciously understood that his family was re-enacting a spiritual pattern....[and reminded his brethren of it frequently].....The Mormon pioneers, crossing the American wilderness, called themselves the Camp of Israel and were also aware they were following a pattern laid down before them....In spiritual history, the place of refuge is the wilderness, idealized by Israel as the place to commune with God. Certain profound lessons are learned in the wilderness, especially our complete dependence on God for it is a trackless, difficult place where our own resources prove not to be enough. The wilderness experiences in scripture are for cleansing and clarifying, and it is only after a people has experienced the marrow-deep challenges of the wilderness that they are ready to inherit a promised land" (Maurine Proctor, All Things According to His Will, Meridian Magazine).

Even though Lehi and his family were favoured of God and spared Jerusalem's destruction, they needed the experience of the wilderness to establish a righteous branch of Israel in another land. For this reason Lehi and his family travelled by the banks of the Red Sea for nine whole years before Nephi received instruction to build a ship. If the wilderness is a spiritual oasis where one finds God, this had to be true of this band of followers who had to be taught by what power they were inheriting the promised land. And they did find God in many ways but in one most extraordinary way. They found him in a tree.

Approximately a year before the command to build a ship, Lehi, had a very memorable dream in which he beheld an even more memorable tree, the tree of life. When Nephi, being the dutiful son that he was, inquired of God the meaning of the tree of life that his father had seen, an angel appeared to him to tutor him.  When the angel asked Nephi if he knew what the tree represented,  Nephi answered that it is the love of God, most desirable above all (2 Nephi 11:22,23). Immediately following his answer he was shown a vision of the Savior during his mortal ministry. It becomes very clear through Nephi's vision that the love of God is manifest to his children through the gift of His only begotten Son thus the tree becomes the symbol of Jesus Christ. Why a tree? Because a tree bears fruit and fruit is something you eat and something you eat becomes a part of you. In other words, you are what you eat. It transforms your very system. What we eat spiritually also transforms us, even to the point of rebirth. This rebirth places us on the path to eternal life. Alma claims that if we plant the word, which is compared to a seed, into our hearts and nurture it, it "shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree spring up into everlasting life" (Alma 32:41).

The symbol of the tree "converges all the meaning of the gospel. It was the tree of life that stood in the Garden of Eden and nourished Adam and Eve. This was a place of unity with each other and with the Lord. After they fell, eating the fruit of a forbidden tree, they came into a world of duality, division, separation from God. The only way to be at-one again with the Lord comes from the events that took place on another tree - the cross, through Christ's atonement and resurrection. Some legends even claim the cross was constructed from a branch of the tree of life. Symbolically, at least, this is true" ("The Vision of the Tree of Life, Meridian Magazine, December 14, 2015)

So it is with us. We all need a wilderness if we are to truly know God. The Lord wants us to find Him in the rough terrain, in the scorching desert, in the endless roads that we might know by whose hand we are led to 'the goodly land'. As prepared as Lehi was, his capacities were not enough. Hence the Liahona to point the way to the most fertile parts of the land where they could hunt for their survival (1 Nephi 16:14-30). It is good to be equipped with a bow but it is the hunt that the Lord provides that makes the hunter.

Every true disciple of Jesus Christ will experience 'a wilderness' before they get to their promised land. What promised land?: "Your promised land. Your new Jerusalem. Your own little acre flowing with milk and honey. Your future. Your dreams. Your destiny. I believe that in our own individual ways, God takes us to the grove or the mountain or the temple and there shows us the wonder of what His plan is for us" (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence, Ensign March 2000, p 10). We do not need to travel the rocky path to the land of milk and honey alone for the Lord has promised "....mine angels shall go up before you, and also my presence, and in time ye shall possess the goodly land" (D&C 103:17, 19-20). The barren landscape of our wilderness will serve as a testing ground that will refine us, change us and enoble us if all the lessons are learnt and all obstacles overcome with the help of Him who desires to see the journey completed to the end. And when the moments of doubt and uncertainty would question the worthiness of that journey, we must be like that faithful, bold and resourceful merchant from the outskirts of Jerusalem who stood on the banks of the Red Sea, with no ship in sight, proclaiming: "I have obtained a land of promise" (1 Nephi 5:5).

HE WHO HAS PAVED THE WAY

The Inspired Version of the Bible records that at the onset of His mortal ministry and following His baptism, Jesus was 'led up of the Spirit, into the wilderness, to be with God': "And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, and had communed with God, he was afterwards an hungered and was left to be tempted of the devil" (Matthew 4:1,2, Inspired Version, italics added). In the King James Version of the Bible, it is recorded that he was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Bruce R. McConkie makes it clear that this was not the case: "Jesus did not go into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil; righteous men do not seek out temptation. He went 'to be with God'. Probably he was visited by the Father, without question he received transcendent spiritual manifestations. The temptations came after he 'had communed with God', 'after forty days.' (McConkie, DNTC, 1:128; see also Mosiah 3:7). The King James Version in Matthew 4 continues to record that Jesus was taken by the devil here and there to be tempted of him. The Inspired Version constantly corrects this in the footnotes stating that the Spirit took Jesus and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple and an exceedingly high mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. This is an extremely important point we need to take notice of. If we did not have the Inspired Version we would be convinced by the erroneous account of the King James Version that the devil had the upper hand with Jesus and that he has the upper hand with us. This is simply not true. The devil has no upper hand in anything. He is simply an upstart and an outcast. He has no power over the children of men except what they give him. He cannot take away anyone's agency or make anyone do his bidding and he most certainly cannot take us anywhere. His only dominion lies in temptation. That is the extent of his power.

I heard an evangelist say on TV recently that the adversary has no power on his best day to take us out on our worst day. This is a sobering thought considering he is so well practiced and considering how well he knows us from pre-existence and from observation. Unknowingly we have taught him where our worst weaknesses lay by our repeated misuse of agency. He knows the traps, the pitfalls, human foibles and all weaknesses. So how can we be more powerful than him? Because of two things:

1. We have a body. This is our biggest advantage. We have kept our first estate and now we are on the second leg of our eternal journey. We stand to gain eternal life. He has already lost that chance. He stands to gain nothing for when all this is over he will be nothing. Isaiah said this of him: "Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake the kingdoms?" (Isaiah 14:15,16). In the end Satan will be stripped of the limited power he now has and his reign of horror on this earth will be over. For now he is considered 'the god of this world' but he will once again be just an outcast. 
2. We have once before chosen the God of Glory over Lucifer. We have the power to continue to choose Him who delivers us from the sting of sin and death and offers us ultimate freedom. When God revealed Himself to Moses, Moses beheld His glory and was taught of his divine origin as God repeatedly called him, 'Moses, my son'. When God withdrew, the devil appeared on the scene and wanted to be worshipped also. True to his character, he sought to make Moses believe he was lesser than he was by calling him 'son of man' (Moses 1:12). Satan knew that if Moses believed he was the son of God, he would also believe that he had God's power at his fingertips and could therefore resist him. Moses was not to be confused, however, and he pointed out to Satan that he had no glory, only darkness, and therefore he had no power over him (1 Moses:15) and by his conviction he was able to cast him out of his presence. When Jesus resisted the three temptations of the devil He proved to those who follow Him that all power to overcome lay within Him. We as his followers and disciples, through our faith on Him and by the virtue of our agency, have access to this power to overcome and conquer the enemy of all righteousness.

It was after the Saviour had made his covenants with the Father through baptism that Satan came to tempt Him. So it is with us. Often when we are baptised into the Church, we think we are safe and have 'arrived'. Nothing could be further from the truth. The adversary will work on us, the covenant people, more than he will work on those who have not made sacred promises to God. More often than not his temptations will come in three ways that he tempted the Saviour with: 1. a temptation of the appetite; 2. a yielding to the pride and fashion and vanity of those alienated from the things of God; 3. a gratifying of the passion, or a desire for the riches of the world or power among men (David O. McKay in CR, Oct 1911, p. 59). We who are his targets need to be vigilant at all times to recognise the subtle slide into sin that he constantly lays before us. Why? Because by it we stand to lose a lot. Here is a clear explanation of this fact:

"Repentance is, frankly, just plain smart, because sin makes you stupid. Stupid because you are deaf, dumb and blind to the ways of the Lord. Stupid because habitual sin drives the Spirit away, leaving you outside the protective influence of the Holy Ghost. Stupid because it makes you incapable of drawing upon the powers of heaven. Being stupid costs a lot. Sin costs a lot too. It can cost time, money, peace of mind, progress, self-respect, your integrity and virtue, your family, the trust of those you love, and even your Church membership. Sin is just plain stupid. And the cost is off the charts. So repent now. Repent daily. If you want to be sanctified, repentance is not optional" (Sheri L. Dew, You Were Born to Lead, You Were Born for Glory, BYU Speeches, December 2003)

We are powerful beyond our capacity to understand. This power is shown in the moments of our choices. The power within us comes from God. It is His gift to all those who commit to follow Him. We cannot afford to give this power away for it has the potential to crown us with eternal life and endless glory. We want this, we have always wanted this. We are His children who are destined to wear the crowns of godhood. He has paved the way and by it made us powerful enough to conquer and overcome through His sinless sacrifice. The path is straight, the road smooth, the journey easy if we walk it following the footsteps before us. The Atonement is the key and it can make us brilliant and holy and glorious beyond anything we can ever imagine (Cathryne Allen, How to Use the Power of the Atonement, November Blog 2013). Use it, call upon it and trust in it. The reward is yours and it is waiting.

"And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me."  (Moroni 7:33)

MANNA ON THE HIGHWAY

"And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.

"And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

"Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years." (Deut. 8:2-4)

God knows our every need, what we need and when we need it.  For forty years He provided the Israelites with the necessities of life, from food and water to clothing which was preserved during all their time in the wilderness.  None of us could imagine wearing the same clothes for forty years but the Israelites did.  As they entered the promised land which 'flowed with milk and honey', the dynamics of God's miraculous care immediately changed; manna ceased to grace the earth and as other options became available the Israelites were no longer totally dependent on God.  Able to now take care of themselves, all that was asked of them was to remember what He had done for them when they could not do for themselves. A good lesson for anyone's books; the Lord will not abandon us in our time of need and He will not disable us in our time of plenty by unnecessary indulgence.  The following is a story of a 'modern day manna' that illustrates this point related by Hyrum M. Smith:

"I was raised in San Bernardino....during the Depression.  I was taught a marvelous lesson in faith when I was about nine years old.  We were living in what could best be described as a converted chicken coop. We owned a piece of ground that bordered a very busy highway.  On one occasion our father called us together and said: 'I have been impressed that we should spend a day fasting and praying to see if the Lord can't direct us in a path that will help us have enough money to build a home' (as told by Gerald Quinn).

His father had a job and all that job paid during the Depression was enough for food and clothing for a family and that was all.  At the end of this day of fasting, Bro. Quinn approached his children again.  Remember Gerald Quinn at this point was about nine.  And he said, 'I have been impressed that if we will go out in front of our house on this busy street, that we'll be able to find enough change dropped from passing motorists to feed our family.  Then I can take the money I get at work, buy the materials for the house and we can build the house ourselves'. Sister Quinn was very supportive and she said, 'If that's what you think is right, we'll do it'.

Gerald and his young sister were assigned the task of going out and searching the highway.  The next morning they went out and spent about 45 minutes walking up and down this highway about 600 yards on either side of the house.  They came back with 75c that they had found.  Those of you that remember the Depression, 75c was a lot of money. It bought food for the day.The next day they went out and did the same thing and brought back about $1.23. This was nickles, dimes and pennies. Brother and sisters, this went on for four years. Every day they would come back with anywhere from 25c to $1.50 in change.

Brother Quinn did exactly what he committed to the Lord he would do; took his money from work, bought the materials and they built a home. It was not a palatial place, but it was home. Gerald Quinn said, 'I'll never forget the day we finished the home. We had a ceremonial burning of the chicken coop out back. Mom fixed a really neat meal and we all had just kind of a special day'.

He said, 'the next day, because it had become our habit, my sister and I went out to the street to collect our 'daily manna'. We spent an hour and didn't find one penny. We came back to the house frantic, approached our mother and said, 'Mother, there is no money out there today'.

Mom sat them down and taught them a powerful lesson and said, 'you didn't expect there to be any money today, did you?' And Gerry not really understanding this whole process said, 'well, it's been there for four years, why not today?'  And then his gracious mother said, 'because we don't need it anymore. And there won't be any money anymore. The Lord provided that while we were building our home. Our home is completed. There won't be any money anymore'.

Gerry Quinn had to prove that. For the next three weeks he went out every day and never found another dime.

(From an audio recording by Hyrum M. Smith, "A Testimony of the Principles of Faith")