“How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” (Psalm 84:1-2)
I want this Psalm to be my prayer. I want to want God like this. I want to genuinely sing out with the Psalmist a few verses later, “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere” (84:10).
But, sadly, that isn’t the typical yearning of my heart. I am often, as C.S. Lewis says in The Weight of Glory, “like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because [I] cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. [I am] far too easily pleased.”
The only times I find myself truly craving the presence of the Lord are when I’m emptied in the wilderness. When I’m stripped of all the man-made things that prop me up, I feel a keen desire for God. And if nothing in this world will ever satisfy me the way He can, then the only safe place to aim my desires is right at God’s heart. And if God knows we need the wilderness to rekindle our holy hunger for Him, then is the wilderness not a gift? Is the desert not profound grace?
Sliding back into Psalm 84, sandwiched between the verses quoted above, we find a pilgrim on the sacred journey to seek God in Zion.
To get there, this traveler must pass through the Valley of Baka, which literally means the lowlands of weeping. But his heart is set on the courts of the Lord, and his sorrow is poured out in praise. His tears of desire transform this place of pain into a place flowing with life-giving water. He goes from strength to strength while seeking the Lord. (84:5-7)
Wilderness Theophanies
Nothing could be greater than an encounter with the Living God. Think of the instances in the Bible when God displayed Himself in a revelatory way . . . Moses, in the desert with the burning bush and later on Mt. Sinai; Elijah, the same Mt. Sinai in the desert; Ezekiel, while in exile; Peter, James, and John, on the Mount of Transfiguration; John again, exiled to the island of Patmos.
God is in no way confined to desert theophanies, but it would seem that when his people are away from man’s constructs with its countless distractions and idols, that we are finally in that prime space to yearn for Him, be still and wait for Him, and see Him in His glory.
The holy hunger is a gift, and so is the wilderness that creates it.
Today, we’ll visit John on Patmos. Can you see him there, on a rocky hill, staring across the Aegean horizon toward the life and the work he was banished from? Can you smell the salt air and hear the gull’s cry? Can you discern the furrow on his wrinkled, sweating brow? See the slump of his shoulders as he knows he is the last of the disciples? And can you hear his entreating murmur? “Come, Lord Jesus. Come.“
Respond
What causes you to hunger and thirst for God?
Read
Wonder
What questions do these verses stir in you?
Worship
How do you see God’s character revealed?
Walk it out
Where does it connect with your life? How can it help you walk closer to God?
Recommended Resource
by John Mark Comer
I listened to this podcast shortly after writing the study above, and it is absolutely perfect in adding depth and weight to our understanding of John’s vision of Jesus in the introduction of the book of Revelation. I love when God brings things together like that, highlighting and adding to what He has already been speaking. I know you’ll enjoy this episode, too!
Download The Whole 14-Part Wilderness Study FREE (no sign-up!)
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