Blooming cacti above the Zebra Slots in Grand Staircase-Escalante, Utah
The desert is very dry, and as I said last week, it’s not very beautiful in places. But God created it, and so it is beautiful because He created it and He sees it as beautiful.
Sunset over Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California
There is a parallel here between the physical desert and the deserts of our hearts. We see both as dry and barren. We might even be embarrassed about it, or ashamed.
Desert around the Marufo Vega Trail in Big Bend National Park, Texas
But like God loves the desert, God also loves the dry places in our lives. He created the desert for His pleasure, because He realized the world would be incomplete without it. He created us – no matter how desertly dry and barren as we might feel – because He wanted us for His pleasure, and He knew the world would not be complete without us. It sounds high and lofty, but it’s also true.
Along the River Road in Big Bend National Park, Texas
I can go out and see the endless plains of sage brush on the Arizona Strip, or the tangle of mesquite and cactus further south. It looks unplanned, or like a place that was forgotten somehow when the beauty or goodness was handed out. But it’s not true, because it was created as its Creator intended.
Flowering cactus on the Arizona Strip
We can look at our own lives at times and feel like it’s a tangle of messed up opportunities, lack of opportunities, constant failings, and as though we were forgotten when the talent and beauty was being given away. But like the wilderness, that’s not the whole story, nor is it the truth.
Looking down into the canyon containing Brimhall Arch in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah
We were created like our Creator intended. Maybe we don’t measure up to the Super Saint next door. But that’s ok, because God didn’t create you to be a Super Saint (who, quite often, are a lot more puff and voice than reality, anyway).
Walking the slot canyons of Cathedral Gorge State Park, Nevada
If God created you to be, figuratively, a saguaro cactus which can’t even withstand a freezing night without damage, than be the best saguaro cactus you can be. If God made you a tumbleweed on a sandy plain, than be the best tumbleweed you can be. If God made you to be a rocky mountain without a blade of grass on it because there hasn’t been rain more than a year, than be the mountain that knows God made it and will stand firm in being that mountain.
The Nevada mountains around Lexington Arch, Great Basin National Park, Nevada
The point (as crazy as the above examples are) is that God created you as you are, deserts and all. He made you that way, intentionally. Sure, we can make some poor choices. But He knew that we could make those choices, and it didn’t surprise Him any more than it surprises Him that the desert doesn’t receive 101” of rain each year. Your poor choices didn’t even disappoint Him – He wouldn’t go to the desert and expect to find a rain forest, either. He understands that we are dust (Psalm 103:13-14) and He has compassion on us, even when we seem to be very desert-like in our seasons of the soul.
