Second Thursday of Advent: Wandering through the Wilderness
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Readings: Isaiah 41:13-20; Matthew 11:11-15
Sometimes the spiritual life seems to be stuck on repeat. Again and again we find ourselves walking over familiar paths; we experience the same alienations, we repeat the same sins, we find ourselves asking the same questions and we might well be tempted to think that we’re walking in circles.
Perhaps the more we reflect the more we notice that its not just us who are in this predicament. If we talk with our friends or priests we learn that everyone struggles over the same well trodden ground; not only have we been here before but we aren’t the first ones to walk this way. We are all, it seems, on a journey through the wilderness.
However this disorientation can be turned into direction. When one walks through a desert there can be two reasons for feeling lost. First, one might actually be lost! They’ve taken their eyes off the guide and wandered into the midst of some sand dunes. Or the second reason is because, even though they are following the guide, every sand dune they walk past looks the same.
So, what are we to do? Well if we fall into the first category it’s quite simple: we shout out for the guide and hope he hears us. This is to say, we turn to God in prayer and confidence that he will hear us: ‘When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them’ (Isaiah 41:17).
But what if we are in the second group? If one is feeling lost in the midst of following Christ what can one do? We might be trying to pray as often as we can, to keep our eyes firmly fixed on Christ by doing good deeds and following his commands. But we can still occasionally feel lost and it exhausts us. In such cases we need to think not so much about what we’re doing but where we are doing it. If we’re wandering through a desert and we think we’ll make the journey more bearable by counting each step we take we will surely go mad! Rather if we get sick of the sight of what is surely the same cactus we saw three days ago we have to remind ourselves it takes three months to cross the wilderness and we’ve only been walking three days.
It takes us a lifetime to accomplish God’s will for us and a lifetime is what he’s given us. So let’s be realistic, we know we’re in the midst of a long journey and we know we’re going to get tired along the way. However we also know that other people have crossed the wilderness before us and we can draw inspiration and sustainance from the lives of the saints. True, it is probably quite frustrating to see that the sand dune passed on the penultimate day of the journey looks exactly like that sand dune we passed on day three but that’s just how it is. Maybe if we stop looking for mirage of the spiritual crescendo we’ll remember it’s the end of the journey we’re really interested in.
