desert people

Bed·ou·in |bed(ə)win|
noun
a nomadic Arab of the desert.

God’s people have always been desert people.

In reality the desert is not just sand and heat, but solitude and silence. The desert that God leads his people into is both literal and figurative. It is the furnace of transformation for the sake of becoming set free from our false selves and more like Christ.

After they were set free from slavery in Egypt they wandered in the desert for forty years before they could enter the Promised Land.

Christ Himself spent forty days in the wilderness fasting and being tempted by Satan before beginning His public ministry.

In the 4th and 5th centuries, the Desert Fathers and Mothers fled to the desert in Egypt for years in order to be stripped of their false and sinful selves so that they could be transformed in the image of Christ for the sake of the world.

The Benedictine Monks based their prayer and work on the ideas of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. And when a group of monks fled the French Revolution and landed in Boston, they immediately set out to build a new monastery by asking where they could find the desert in America. The answer? Kentucky.


And that is where I found myself… at Asbury Seminary, just an hour down the road from that very monastery, the Abbey of Gethsemani.

In the “desert” of Estes Chapel & Gethsemani I prayed and was silent, wept and danced, had nothing and had more than enough. At the altar I said good-by to my church and home of over twenty years, dealt with a war, interceded for my father’s health, confessed my sins and woundedness, was reconciled to my family, met and married my wife, and was called to pick up and go again.


In the Exodus story, God led his people with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. This meant that whenever they looked to see where they were going, they could only see God. And so now the same pillar of fire that moved us from Texas to Kentucky has moved us to another place I never would have imagined: Arkansas.

I have no idea what I am doing. I have no idea what will happen. But when I try to look beyond the dunes, all I can see is a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

We have more junk than the Bedouin. So our pack camel was a 26 ft. truck with a trailer for the car. Jenn drove behind me and took this picture as we crossed the Mississippi River.

For a very good book on the desert and the spiritual life, check out this book.