Thursday, Week Four of Lent by Kat Duck
Matthew 4:1-11
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,
‘One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’”
Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
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Without saying, “I know exactly how Jesus felt,” I can say, after having spent my own time in the wilderness, “I think I know exactly how Jesus felt.” The wilderness is a wild and lonely place, filled with mirages, dryness, rocks, and pitfalls. In my times of traversing the wilderness, unlike Jesus, who remained fully in control of himself, to my great distress, I have succumbed to some of these mirages and pitfalls. I have never allowed the devil to embrace me and turn my face away from God, but I have sipped the cool water of what I thought was relief only to have to spit it out quickly when it turned to sand in my mouth.
There are many wildernesses in our lives, and we will spend time there, fighting the urgings of the one who would claim our souls if we let down our guard for even a moment. When I’m in the wilderness, I want to get our as quickly as I can and it’s tempting to grab a proffered “get out of jail free card” and slip through the nearest exit. But sometimes, as I’ve learned the hard way, time in the wilderness is exactly what I needed when I finally relaxed enough to understand that the wilderness is not the hell I thought it was; sometimes it’s the very thing that will slow me down enough to reclaim myself so I will be able to move through the next phase of my life. Spending time in the Arizona high desert a couple of years ago, even though it was desolate at times, was exactly what I needed to renew my spiritual practices and help me reorient my life toward a goal I’d been needing to reach for a long time.
So, the next time you’re in the wilderness, relax and lean into it, re-read the story of Jesus’ time in the wilderness and resist the temptation to escape by stepping off the cliff with the one who would turn you away from God.
Kat Duck