Lent Devotional: Monday, April 8
Posted April 8, 2019 by SMBC in Lent
Four summers ago I had reached a point in my battle with addiction that I needed to get help. I checked into wilderness therapy, a forty-day treatment program that required complete immersion into wilderness living. This could not have been further from my comfort zone. Growing up, my family never went camping. My outdoor skills and experience were exactly zero.
Lent Devotional: Friday, April 5
Posted April 5, 2019 by Everett DuBroc in Lent
A few months ago, I had a bad dream that was so scary it woke me up in the middle of the night. In this nightmare, aliens were invading my house, and it all felt very real. When I woke up I was sweating and thought about getting up to go into my parents' bedroom. Instead, I prayed and asked God to help me not be afraid. Immediately, I heard God tell me to be calm, that I was safe, and that He…
Lent Devotional: Thursday, April 4
Posted April 4, 2019 by SMBC in Lent
Some of us live on the edge of the wilderness—finding ourselves there more times than we would like and for rather unpredictable reasons. We don't want to go into the dark, we don't wish it on people, but we find ourselves there. In the Bible, these wilderness experiences are too often characterized almost as punishments, but perhaps that is missing the point. As Berry points out, there is…
Lent Devotional: Wednesday, April 3
Posted April 3, 2019 by Jane Benesh in Lent
It was a sunny Sunday when I was in Kindergarten. We were just leaving for church. While my dad was locking up the house, my brother and I were racing down the concrete driveway. I tripped on a rock and fell down. Hard. I felt a terrible pain in my ankle. Just then, my dad walked toward me with his keys when he noticed me on the ground, crying. When he asked me what happened, I said, "We were…
Lent Devotional: Tuesday, April 2
Posted April 2, 2019 by SMBC in Lent
Wilderness is a macro theme in the Bible. Our Pastor has been saying that wilderness is a time when God speaks. I can see two reasons why God speaks when we are in the wilderness. The first reason is that God reaches out to us when we are in spiritual need. The second reason is when we are in a place of wilderness—truly overwhelmed and troubled, we are receptive to hearing God speaking to us.…
Lent Devotional: Monday, April 1
Posted April 1, 2019 by Krystol Wheeler in Lent
As I contemplate the theme of this year's Lenten series—Wilderness—I'm reminded of a post from John Pavlovitz's blog that I read on Facebook recently titled, "Everyone around you is grieving. Go easy." I love that he highlights some of the darker aspects of humanity we all know too well, the uncomfortable or awkward or painful things many of us rarely share fully with the public—the "…
Lent Devotional: Friday, March 29
Posted March 29, 2019 by Tate Shannon in Lent
When we're in the wilderness, it doesn't matter which direction we look: we don't know where to go. We can't see any path that promises to quench our thirst, to heal our broken body, or to fill our empty stomach. There's no direction that promises to end our suffering. We need rest, but we can't stop moving because movement means we might be getting closer to respite.
Lent Devotional: Thursday, March 28
Posted March 28, 2019 by Josie Adney in Lent
A friend recently confessed to me that they were in a dry, spiritual season... She likened it to John of the Cross's "dark night of the soul." I told her that I too had once experienced a season of weariness, wanting for God, and quietness that stretched for months and months on end. The two of us reflected on this time of spiritual wilderness. In times of unnerving silence, when we feel as…
Lent Devotional: Wednesday, March 27
Posted March 27, 2019 by SMBC in Lent
Wilderness. Living in the wilderness. Wandering in the wilderness. For many years I felt I was wandering aimlessly in the wilderness. I lost my career and calling due to deteriorating eyesight. I struggled pursuing other artistic outlets. I gave myself shingles and then descended into depression, all because of a simple genetic disorder. I wanted to get back on that stage but felt I couldn't…
Lent Devotional: Tuesday, March 26
Posted March 26, 2019 by Mollie Musgrove in Lent
When I think of the word wilderness, I picture someone walking alone in a dark, scary, and lonely place. That is what my journey with anxiety looked like for many years. Anxiety is a disease that can infect all the good in your life if you let it. My health, my relationships, my mind were all fighting a losing battle. Anxiety is something I've struggled with almost all of my life, but I did…
Lent Devotional: Monday, March 25
Posted March 25, 2019 by SMBC in Lent
When gold was discovered in California in 1849, Americans from the East traveled there on foot, by wagon train, and even with hand carts. So swiftly did they journey that by 1850 California became a State, separated from the rest of the Union by thousands of miles. Much of what these early settlers passed after leaving the Eastern woodlands was viewed simply as barren, worthless desert. Sadly…
Lent Devotional: Friday, March 22
Posted March 22, 2019 by Nick Woolley in Lent
In the wilderness I often get lost. I wander. I collect unnecessary things. In a sparse environment it is hard to know what is valuable and what I will need in the future.
As a believer in Christ, I know my time on earth is the most separated from God that I will ever have to be. I see this time in the wilderness as my chance to pass a test.
Lent Devotional: Thursday, March 21
Posted March 21, 2019 by Anna Bernal in Lent
This passage from Joshua is always in my head as I go about my days being a teenager. I first remember thinking about this passage when I was in second grade. My favorite person in the world, my grandma, had just passed away from cancer and I was devastated. To make matters worse, a mean girl at school must have sensed my weakness and started bullying me. At first she would say unkind things…
Lent Devotional: Wednesday, March 20
Posted March 20, 2019 by SMBC in Lent
Today, as I huddle under my hot-hot purple-collar heating pad relaxing my rock-hard neck muscles, with my plush purple blanket spreading several weeks of tiny dog hairs over my legs, and sipping hot chai tea from my purple mug, I am wondering what I can say about the wilderness. Even as pain and uncertainty descend, I have resources to find at least physical comfort. So what is the wilderness…
Lent Devotional: Tuesday, March 19
Posted March 19, 2019 by SMBC in Lent
I don't remember the last time I was physically lost. It had to have been at some point driving in Houston before the introduction of GPS on cell phones. I remember having to carry a set of maps in my car to get around in the city. Now, all I need to do is speak where I want to go and the phone plots my path. I am unsure what I would do if the voice on the Waze app stopped guiding me to my…
Lent Devotional: Monday, March 18
Posted March 18, 2019 by SMBC in Lent
My mom's parents lived in a small town called Lazbuddie, about an hour and a half northwest of Lubbock where I attended Texas Tech University. God led me to Texas Tech so that I would have 4 years with my Granna and Papa. The weekend I graduated from college in December of 2012 was the last weekend I spent with my maternal grandmother. She passed away a few weeks later. Her passing, just days…
Lent Devotional: Friday, March 15
Posted March 15, 2019 by Nathan Moeller in Lent
My own road through the wilderness deals not so much with sin and straying from God, but a life torn apart and forged into something new. At the outset of this journey, I stepped into the unknown with a few close friends and family by my side, but God knew I needed more. Much, much more. A few months into the voyage, He brought me to South Main Baptist Church, where a new family of faith…
Lent Devotional: Thursday, March 14
Posted March 14, 2019 by SMBC in Lent
I had hoped my Christian life would be marked by mountains of faith, but I confess that I've had some "mustard-seed faith" kind of days, days when just a speck of faith was all I could muster. Pain, loss, and grief have bowed my head low and unanswered prayers have left my heart raw; but in those hard times, God gave me a kernel of hope. He gave me a promise that even the tiniest seed of faith…
Lent Devotional: Wednesday, March 13
Posted March 13, 2019 by SMBC in Lent
Over the past several years I've had the privilege to visit the Middle East, much of it the same wilderness where the children of Israel likely wandered. I can't even imagine what that would have been like. You are in the middle of nowhere. You can look for miles in every direction and see nothing but desert. It is desolate—hot, barren, dry. Then a local resident told me to look closer—to…
Lent Devotional: Tuesday, March 12
Posted March 12, 2019 by Daniela George in Lent
As we go through life, there are only a few things bound to be certain. One thing we know for sure is that as humans we are perfectly imperfect. We sin and we disappoint. But we do good in the world and glorify God. Sometimes the path to glorifying Him and doing good in the world is not pristine. Sometimes it is a treacherous path. This path can feel like an empty road, a forest so big and so…
