A Prayer in the Desert

Dear Abba,

Thank you for the desert, the season of being in lack. I know that the path that I chose wasn’t easy. I left my job in the corporate world for the desire of becoming an entrepreneur. I have no savings, no business plans, no business partners nor investors- I only have you. And that’s why I feel I have more than enough.

What’s amazing about being the desert is knowing that you are there to watch over me. I know I have lots of things to learn yet in this life and the fact that I am feeling all sorts of difficulties right now is because you are still in the process of refining me as a person. I know, one day, I will become fully what you intended me to become- a mighty man of yours.

Abba, I remember how you provided for your people in the time of Moses as it was written in the Book of Exodus. In the desert, you provided manna, quail and water. Despite the discontentment and the sinfulness of the Israelites back then, you never ceased to care. The cloud of your care and the firewall of your protection remained with them until they reached the promised land.

I thank you for your faithfulness. I thank you for the desert. I thank you for the time of lack. If there’s a place that this season in my life had brought me- that place is my end, a place where I have met my limitations as a human being. I can’t keep my money. I can’t keep my health. I can’t keep my shelter. They aren’t my security. You are. And the more that you take away from me, the more that I learn how limited and fragile and helpless I am. The more that I know about it, the more that I become dependent on you. And the more that I depend on you, the more that I get near the truth- that you are the God who is the source of everything and that you are the God who is more than willing to provide for us.

I thank you for you are my God. You are the God who loves me no matter what. You are the God who provides in the middle of the desert, despite the disobedience after disobedience after disobedience after disobedience.

You gave and gave and gave and gave to us. What can you not give if you had already given the Son 2,000 years ago to be the fountain of grace and forgiveness for us? Because of him, we can now approach your most Holy of Holies anytime in the temple that you have built within our bodies. You have also written the law in our hearts and that law is called love.

Thank you for being the mighty provider in Ararat, in Sinai, in Calvary, in Zion and in the desert.

Holding on to you,

Mark