There’s just sand, for miles and miles and miles, as far as my eyes can see. In every direction the horizon is dyed with the tan color of the flat desert in which I stand.
It’s not sweltering out here. The sun is lowering, the wind is picking up a bit, and there’s a pond of water beside me that has been quenching my thirst. I am physically comfortable.
But for the first time in my life I realize I’m lost. And every time I try to retrace my steps, I’m reminded that I followed the map down to the last turn, and all logic tells me I shouldn’t be here.
Yet here I stand. With nothing in front of me, nothing behind me, nothing to my right or to my left.
In this nothingness, I dwell.
Every fiber in my being yells for me to keep walking.
“There’s gotta be a way through this haze,” I tell myself. “Because once I break through this, then all will be okay again.” But when I try to take a step I hear His voice.
“Stop. Right there. Right there is where I want you.”
Right here, where there are no people to help. Where there’s no crying child to hold, no distraught person to remind of the love of Christ, no congregation to preach the good news to. And where there is no one to serve, my purpose in life seems to slip.
“The heck, God? I’m on a roll. I was moving to the next village, gearing up for another year, for the rest of my life. Think of all the lives we could impact?”
“Stay.”
My heart begins to beat faster, my hands begin to quiver. I start to look around rapidly. There’s gotta be a way out. Please, just show me the way out.
“Sit.”
I’m sobbing now.
What am I with no direction? What is my purpose when nobody needs me? Do I still matter, sitting alone in this desert for weeks on end, as much as I did when I was in Thailand loving on women who were trafficked? Every fiber of my being screams, No.
So I start to bargain. “God, show me the way out of this desert, and I promise I’ll bring so many people to your name that you won’t know what to do with them all! Young and old alike, I’ll lead them to you! I’ll proclaim on street corners, I’ll preach in churches, I’ll pave the way to you! Just show me the way out of this nothingness!”
“Oh Diana, just breathe. You are already enough. You haven’t changed to me. You matter because you matter because you matter. Because I love you, not because you can deserve my love. Sit and know, Diana, that there is nothing you could ever do to earn my favor. It’s already on you, wherever you walk you bring it with you.”
“But Jesus never…”
“Jesus sat in the desert for forty days before something happened. He didn’t see anybody. He didn’t eat or drink. He just sat there. And even then, He was enough for me. So are you.”
“Well, this is rotten.”
So we sit. And we sit. And we sit.
We’re still sitting. But I’m starting to get it. The love that I have been pouring out and pouring out and pouring out is just as much for me as for the people that I’ve been giving it to. I’m just as important to Him. And now that I know the lesson that He’s trying to teach me, I’ve been looking for my path to light up soon, because obviously I’ve learned it.
I can just see God cracking a smile. Knowing something and believing something are two different things.
We might be in this desert for a while…
But when we stay, we stay together. And when we leave, we leave together.
I’m enough for Him. So He’ll never leave me alone.
