Of Desolate Lands and Wild Animals and Wonky Timelines

Sometimes, when God does something, it's spectacular and I see it right away. I'm like, Cool, I see what you did there. Other times, it's like the slow dawn of another day, where God does His thing, and after a long, long time, I'm like: Ooohhhh, I get it now.

The funny thing -- not really haha funny, but interesting funny -- is that combined with every one of His works in my life, there's a lesson attached. Sometimes I learn the lesson quickly, and the camaraderie we share over that lesson comes a little sooner, and sometimes, it takes me a lifetime to figure out, but I catch glimpses of what He's doing along the way.

So for instance: I think I've mentioned before that when I was very young, I wanted to be a teacher... along with a lot of other things. But "teacher" was easier to spell when I had to fill out the "what do you want to be when you grow up" cards in first grade, so that was what I always put. I dressed up as a teacher for Career Day: Nerdy glasses falling down the bridge of my nose, an ever-present pencil in my hand, a clipboard tucked under one arm. If you cut to a current-day scene of me in the classroom, it's like a miracle: Nerdy glasses and eternal pencil complete the picture; I even carry around the occasional clipboard.

When I got old enough to actually think about life after high school, I considered teaching... but I thought more about other things, and so teaching sort of faded into the background. I joined REACH, and when I was halfway through the program, I got invited to come teach at a small private school in Albuquerque, New Mexico the next year.

All at once, I woke up: Oh yeah! That's what I wanted to do! God smiled, I smiled, we nodded at each other like -- that's right. Teaching. Right, good. Let's do this.

Albuquerque... well, it was an extremely hard year, a desert experience both literally and figuratively for me. There was no single factor that made it that way, but a mixture of many, many things, and so... when the year was done, I no longer wanted to be a teacher.

I went to Rosedale Bible College, and then I went to Eastern Mennonite University and graduated with an English degree. I became a paralegal, then a secretary, then a missionary, then a stay-at-home mom, then a writer. Now and then... over those long years, I glanced up at God and thought: Remember when I wanted to teach?

And He'd glance back and say: I'm not done with you yet.

When my current job at my children's school opened up, once again, God nudged me and said: Remember this?

So I applied, was hired, and fell in love with it all over again, so much so that I decided to go back to graduate school so I could get my teaching license that I had neglected to get for half of my working years.

Now, what was the point of that little jaunt through history? 

Exodus 23. Moses is still on top of Mt. Sinai, listening to the Lord giving out instructions, exegeting the Ten Commandments and the covenant He's making with His people the Israelites. I imagine Moses might possibly be writing it all down; I don't know how he would have remembered everything if he weren't. 

God brings up the Promised Land again in Exodus 23:27-30, and He says: "I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites out of your way. But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.

If you flip over to Judges 1, you see how gradual this process is: the Israelites split into tribes, some take one part of the land, some another part. Sometimes the tribes band together and really bring it home. Sometimes, it takes awhile before they can muster enough strength to drive out a nation.

Here's my thought: there's a formidable multi-nation enemy blockading the Israelites from taking possession of their Promised Land. God is fully capable of blowing the enemy away in a single sweep of His mighty hand (see, for example, the entire Egyptian army drowned in the Red Sea while the Israelites looked on).

But He doesn't choose to do that here, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you.

Here, God chooses to tell Moses and the Israelites why He's picking the timeline He does. "I'm not going to give you everything you want all at once, because you couldn't handle it."

For a New Testament echo of this, Paul writes to the Corinthian church: "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly -- mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it" (1 Corinthians 3:1-2).

Sometimes, weirdly enough, God doesn't snap His fingers like a cosmic Genie in the sky and give us our demands at an instant's notice. Do these phrases sound familiar?

"I've prayed for years, but it's like my prayers hit the ceiling and fall back down."
"I tried praying about that situation, but nothing happened, so I gave up."
"God didn't answer; I stopped praying about it."
Or even: "I see no evidence of God in anything I do, so I've decided He doesn't exist." 

What strikes me as -- amusing now, but frustrating while I was in the middle of it -- is that I thought I knew exactly where God was going to lead me. In first grade as I sported my nerdy glasses and my ever-present pencil and clipboard, I knew God was going to lead me to teaching. 

The difference is that my timeline and God's timeline widely varied. At seven years of age, I would never have guessed that I would dip my toe in teaching at the age of 20, retract, and not touch it again until I was near 40. 

My big question is: Why? I'm not bitter, but I am honestly curious: Why did God decide to take my life in such a different direction from many of my teacher friends, who did the "normal" routine of graduating with a four-year undergrad degree before taking on a teaching career? 

Maybe I'll never fully know, but I suspect it has something to do with "desolate lands and wild animals." (Please don't take that literally; I don't want anyone to think I'm calling my students names or insulting them). :)

The point, which generally surfaces somewhere if I keep writing long enough, is this: I don't always understand the reason for God's timing, but I do know that He has reasons. I don't always understand why He works the way He does, but I do know that He is working. I don't always see where He's taking me, but I do know He's walking beside me through dark places. 

This applies in so many more ways than: "What do I want to be when I grow up?" I've prayed for years and years specifically for the salvation of certain friends, but have not yet seen them surrender their lives to Jesus. God, why? I've watched tragedies unfold in the news and across the world and witnessed the horrific nature of depravity and sin, and I've asked: God, why? I've longed to see Jesus face to face, and I live my life in intense anticipation of that moment when I finally can, but the road stretches out before me. God, how long? I've asked for clarity, for revelation, for wisdom, for patience, for many, many things, and sometimes -- God shows me things clearly, and sometimes, those things stay hidden behind a veil. And I ask: God, why?

Because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you.

In other words, God says: When you're ready -- I'll be ready.

But I'm ready now.

No, you're not. You think you are, but you're not. The land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you.

But don't lose sight of this: even though God's timeline is sometimes, even quite often, even usually different from our timelines... the Promised Land is still coming. Little by little, battle by battle, waiting period by waiting period -- He fulfills His promises.