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this is part three of a four part blog series.  click on the links below for:

part one: slavery

part two: deliverance
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The Race has been difficult for me, primarily emotionally.

Christians tend to think that finding yourself in the “wilderness” means you’ve strayed away from the flock and are now all alone, searching desperately for food, water and the path back to abundant life.

I do not doubt that there is truth in that belief. And, in this blog series, I’ll refer to this type of wilderness simply as “the wilderness.”

But, after reading Deuteronomy eight, I do doubt that straying is always the reason you’re there. The Lord may have delivered you into the wilderness from something much worse before leading you into a Promised Land. I’ll refer to this wilderness as the “delivered wilderness.”

I’ve been in a delivered wilderness since the start of this Race journey. The delivered wilderness, I believe, is that place between slavery & freedom where you’re still fighting to completely loosen the chains from your past. The shackle is still around your ankle, the chain has only been cut from the stake in the ground that tied it.
 
[an ankle shackle used to detain prisoners in the S-21 prison camp of Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge reign]
 
I think the Israelites must’ve thought that, once freed from slavery, life would be easy & painless in the land of promise. Shock & bitterness flooded their hearts when they found themselves in the wilderness; no longer in slavery, but not quite free either. In Exodus, chapter 16, we are told that the Israelites “grumbled against” Moses, Aaron and the Lord, wanting to be back in Egypt where they “sat around pots of meat and ate all the food [they] wanted.”
Did you catch that?
They wanted to be back in Egypt, back in slavery.

So did I.

Sadly, I, too, have “grumbled against” the Lord on this Race. This thing I’d desired for so long, what my heart desired, I no longer wanted. Regardless of my (and AIM’s) attempts to free myself from any “expectations”, the Race wasn’t exactly like I’d pictured it and I wanted to go back to what was comfortable, even if that meant stepping back into slavery. For months I tried fighting these frustrating feelings without success. 

But, just as the Lord provided manna & quail for the daily hunger needs of the Israelites, He’s provided joy & perseverance for the daily emotional needs of me; just as the Israelites had only a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night to guide them, so have I only had the “knowledge” that the Lord is with me. I’ve not necessarily felt Him. And just as He kept them in the wilderness to teach, prepare and completely release them from their bondage to Egypt, He’s kept me in the wilderness to teach, prepare and completely release me from mine. 

Being delivered from the slavery to the financial pride and self-reliance did not deliver me from the emotional pride and self-reliance (just ask my teammates or my boyfriend). Throughout the year, the Lord has placed me in situations that have forced me to rely on Him and my teammates. I couldn’t do anything myself. He has placed me in environments where pride is not only unacceptable, but must die to humility. He is breaking my chains in this delivered wilderness so that I may truly be free in the promised land that is coming.
 
[footprints on the beach of the Thachatchai fishing village in Thailand]

 

[…continue to part four: the promised land]