Desert Training

The Book of  Exodus tells an epic story – the transforma-tion of refugees from mud-pit slaves to chosen people of God – but it’s a roller-coaster odyssey, and they were slow learners!

After an astonishing deliverance at the Red Sea, these refugees trekked three days into the desert of Sinai without finding water. What a difference three days can make.

Yahweh had promised to adopt them as family, to be their God and bring them to a land of safe haven. Now the parched desert seemed to mock the promises of the invisible God.

But there’s more to the desert than meets the eye – and they were not to be the last refugees in history to be ravaged by thirst.

Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, (p.214-224) tells the story of thousands of Pakistani refugees during the 1999 India-Pakistan war stranded in desert land that nobody wanted. The closest water was the Indus River an hour’s walk away.

The UN refused to assist them and their own local government had no resources to help. Against all odds, Mortenson and the refugee men created a settlement-site out of barren desert in 8 weeks. They drilled a 120 foot well, struck water and constructed a concrete tank capable of storing water for 5,000 people.

Five years later, it was a thriving community with rows and rows of mud-block homes, some even equipped with satellite dishes, and a 5-room school where girls are learning to read. Nurtured by a deep aquifer, cherry trees grow thick and lush where the sand dunes used to stand. The desert blossoms because someone cared for people in need.

I wonder . . . if that’s the reason Yahweh’s chosen people had to endure the desert as refugees, ... so that empathy would be embedded deep in their collective psyche, so that, having survived their own ordeal with thirst, they would be the first to render help to others. As God’s light to the Gentiles they would be relentless suppliers of water to those who for whatever reason find themselves searching in vain for the water they need.

The Font by David Robinson, 2003

In the library of Regent College in Vancouver there is a sculpture of a peasant water-carrier standing on a globe in a sea of water.
To me this sculpture depicts Jesus as the ultimate bringer of living water; but equally it illustrates all of God’s people in a needy world – servants to the thirsty, fellow-travelers with those in search of refuge.

I wonder . . . if my desert experiences have taught me empathy or self-preservation. What has been your experience?