THE WILDERNESS THAT KNEW

(Luke 4:1-13)



The Spirit
Led the Son
Into wilderness terrain
That bore His imprint
Through the sands of time.

Imprints first made
By whispery touches
Of the pillar of His cloud
Borne aloft
Pointing the way to hope, to promise.

Imprints deeply scoured
By the blaze of His fiery pillar
Guarding the way
From all who would come
To pillage and devour.

The Spirit led the Son
To the wilderness that
Knew His touch
That had drunk the Living Water
Poured forth from the Rock once struck.

A wilderness
Whose very sands He’d numbered
As they spilled from His hand
Like an hourglass of mercy
Awaiting a piercing, spelling grace.

A Spirit-led Son
Newly walked a wilderness
Already carved with the finger of His law
Revealing at last the spirit of its truth
Hidden until now within man's confining letter.

The Spirit-led Bread of Heaven entered,
Again, a wilderness’s knowing ...
Of manna’s covering for forty tested years ...
And turned not a stone
To bread that could only taste decay.

The wilderness
Well-knew this Son
Spirit-led
And held its breath – waiting – groaning for
The restoration of Eden’s garden promise upon its sands.

And when His Spirit-led steps left its sands at last
The wilderness knew that
It would next feel only the touch of His shadow
Bearing me aloft upon His wings
As we soar above heated desert skies –forever free.



© 31 March 2005
DeAnna L. Brooks

FACE TO FAITH

(Judges 6:11-23)


I get a little nervous sometimes when people start asking for signs from God. But in reading about Gideon’s first face-to-faith encounter, a thought came to me. Gideon was being asked to stretch....to step outside his comfort zone and do something that didn’t look anything like the Gideon he knew. Not just a little stretch, but an enormous out-of-character leap.

I can understand wanting to make certain it was, indeed, God’s voice speaking. How many times have I failed to act on something I’m sensing, a phantom directive? Why? Because I take it out and analyze it, look at it from every conceivable angle, then ....... leave it lying there, because I decide it’s just some fabrication of my mind. It simply doesn’t make sense in the context of my reality.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve said to someone, I’d just like to wake up in the morning and discover a note under my pillow written just to me. A note in God’s handwriting clearly delineating what He wants me to do this day. And if I’m completely honest, I would also want a heads-up on every little unexpected twist or turn that path is going to take, cause after all, I don’t want to get it wrong. And more truthful still, I don’t like surprises. I want to be assured of the happy ending prior to taking that first shaky step.

Well, Gideon got better than a note. He got a direct interface with His maker. And it wasn’t because of a heart looking for something for himself. Gideon’s heart looked for confirmation by immediately serving God an offering prepared by his own hands. I can’t help but wonder if the ephah of flour came from the grain Gideon was threshing, from the brokenness being endured, when the Lord first appeared. Can you picture it? God, quietly waiting under the tree, a smile spreading across His face and pure joyful pleasure radiating from His eyes as he beheld Gideon, preparing, then serving, an offering not from his bounty, but from the meagerness of his storehouse. And it was not an offering poured out publicly before others, but an intimate private offering between Gideon and God. No audience. Just the two of them!

And as God reached out to accept it, I just know it was the power of His love that flowed down the length of His staff and licked up every morsel with the fire of His blessing.

Understandably it left Gideon awestruck. Not the confirmation, but the dawning awareness that God had sought him out, had promised His presence, and had accepted Gideon’s ultimate offering of himself.

And at the moment that perception nearly undid Gideon, the voice floated once more to his heart, renewing its message of love. Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.

Indeed, the Lord had come, had visited a heart, not with a message of death, but a message of life.

The-LORD-Is-Peace still speaks, still meets the Gideon within me. And the message? The message remains one of peace, of hope, of promise. A message from God’s heart of His enduring presence. And the sacrifice of all I have to offer Him, of my very self? Well, He still sits beneath the tree, that promise of what awaited him, watching me, patiently waiting, eyes alight with the burning warmth of His pleasure. And as the LORD reaches out to accept it, I just know it is the power of His love flowing down the length of His staff consuming every morsel with the fire of His blessing.



©31 March 2005
DeAnna Brooks

IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT

(Luke 4:1-14)

In the power of the Spirit
From the desert comes the Son
For there’s a work that’s calling Him
A work yet to be done.

To fill the desert hunger
From stones turned into bread
Tempted not the Son of God -
Heaven’s manna kept Him fed.

Manna born of God’s own word,
Soul-food that fed the Son,
Empowered every step He took
Till the battle He had won.

Desert-scape may lay before you
Filled with footprints you have trod
But let yourself be only fed
With the nourishing words of God.

Words that will impart their strength
And guide you on your way
And guard you from becoming
The Tempter’s tasty prey.

With every doubt he whispers
Into your weary heart
Remember the Son that walked it
And the wisdom He did impart.

When in the power of the Spirit
You step into that barren land
There you will discover
That for which it all was planned.

A place not meant for emptiness
For you, or for the Son,
For He will there accompany you
Until the task be done.

Together you will walk that path
Richly feasting on Heaven’s word
And when the Tempter’s whisper comes
It’s Heaven’s voice that will be heard.

The stones they will not tempt you
To turn them into bread
For you have now discovered
What it means to be well fed.

Life’s wilderness comes to each of us
Just like it came to God’s own Son
But its in the power of the Spirit
From which the desert victory’s won.



© 29 March 2005
DeAnna Brooks

SECRETS OF A WINEPRESS

I love the consistency of God. He is the same yesterday, today and forever....and he knows His creation well. Reading these words “the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree” (Judges 6:12) immediately put me in mind of God visiting Abraham the same way as He now visits Gideon (Gen. 18). Not in a way that generated fear, but in a manner indicative of desiring relationship, communion. I can’t help but wonder ... was Gideon also aware of the previous visit?

I only know God’s first words to Gideon. “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”

God saw Gideon for who he would be, saw him acting in the fullness of his potential, despite Gideon’s standing on a threshing floor in a wine press, hiding from the enemy. Not dressed in warrior’s guise, but covered from head to toe with the itchy, beaten pieces of chaff clinging to every part of his sweating body. And what God saw Gideon to be, in all the victory of what would come, is how God addressed the man standing before Him.

Can you hear those words, falling about this beaten man, like a soothing, comforting balm to this bruised and questioning soul? I love how God loves us! He isn’t afraid of our questions. He understands the ‘eyesight’ battles we have. He meets us where we are .... in the midst of our own winepress, built for pressing a river of life from bruising grapes, even if we’re using it to hide in ... even if we’re covered with chaff ... itchy, scratchy, prickly chaff. And he reminds us that we are warriors. Warriors who are mighty in Him. That we are not alone, despite the myopia of our vision. That it is He, Himself, who is with us.

I understand the Gideon who stands here. His heart beats with my own, his questions and observations about the life he’s immersed in echoing mine. A prisoner not just to physical bondage, but spiritual darkness lies all about him, and he doesn’t understand. He’s lost hope. He doesn’t even try any more.

Can you see, can you feel, the despair that must have filled Gideon’s soul when suddenly God appeared to Him. Not in chastisement. But wonder of wonder, in gentle encouragement, in assuring love. And all the questions, all the despair, all the frustration bursts forth from Gideon’s mouth, and God ..... loved His back, with gentle grace.

“Go in the strength you have...”

I can just see Gideon, eyes popping open, head pulling back. I imagine he even took a step or two backwards, just trying to keep his balance.

In the strength I have??? Doesn’t He see where I am? I’m hiding .... here .... in a winepress, but its me being pressed. Every drop of strength pressed out, till I am empty. In the strength I have??

I can hear the hollow laughter filling that chamber like an empty whisper, can’t you? Then a dawning, so very dim at first, begins to light Gideon’s eyes. What was but a spark begins to grow, until his eyes take on a glowing of understanding ... of hope.

The strength I have is You, Lord. The only strength remaining in me is Your presence, Your heartbeat...in harmony with mine. You will be with me, Lord? You are with me! Even here, even now.

The voice speaks again, filling the winepress and reverberating throughout Gideon’s being, into my own heart, meeting my own need.

“Surely, the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”

I love how God loves us, how He sees us, how He meets us ... in Himself!


© 29 March 2005
DeAnna Brooks

I HEAR YOU CRY

“Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all my commandments, that it might be well with them and their children forever.”
Deuteronomy 5:29


I hear You cry this morning, God! I hear Your voice filled with tears, speak my name. I look back across the pages of my life and know the tears come as Your heart breaks over me. Over what was lost. Over what now is! All You asked was my obedience and a heart that truly saw You, truly knew You, that would so love You I would never walk away, never look away, never hear other voices and turn to them. That Your Presence would be my soul desire. That reverence and loving fear of You would hold me fast. The ache of longing over what we never shared chokes Your heart. The wasted seasons, the cuts and bruises and rending wounds that have torn my life have torn Your heart. And the tears come – shed and unshed in both our hearts. I hear You cry this morning, God! And I see Your open arms, reaching out for me. And stumbling into Your embrace, we cry together. Bitter tears over all that was, covered at last with tears of sweet joy over all that will now be


© DeAnna Brooks
8 March 2005

Grasshopper....Be Gone!

I don’t remember a time I’ve struggle (with depression, etc.) as much as I have these past three weeks. So much so, that I’ve been unable to read or write or ...... But I guess the real truth is each time I’ve looked at the Bible (lengthy looks), I’ve made a choice....just like the eleven spies.

Numbers is a place that God has always spoken....to my heart....revealing truths my mind already knows, but my heart does not want to embrace. In good seasons, it embraces them readily, but in hard seasons....well, avoidance is the name of the game. And my current season is more full of darkness than light. Why? Because I choose the ‘sight-walk’ of the 11 rather than the ‘faith-walk’ of Caleb.

Were you to see the pages of my Bible, you would discover the margins so full of notes I’ve made on prior journeys here, you would find it hard to believe it remains an area of struggle for me. Where or where is that victory that is mine in Christ? Why the lack of “Caleb-ness” in my own sojourning? Do I secretly love the desert? Do I fear to embrace the “land flowing with milk and honey”? Do I want to see myself as a grasshopper when over and over and over God has shown me in my own life the victory in Him that simply awaits my willingness to reach out and grasp it?

I don’t want to be reminded that sight.....that doubting.....is a REJECTION of GOD!!! That the heart of the issue lies very simply, not in believing IN GOD, but simply BELIEVING GOD..

I think that is why my spirit has been avoiding reading these passages, again, this week. I already know where the battle lies. I’m just, for some reason, not willing to make the choice aright.

Thank God His love encompasses me, even here. Truly He is long suffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression. It’s rather humbling, actually mortifying, to admit my doubting (more aptly ‘wallowing’) is sin. But it is! And he forgives....hallelujah!!

Caleb held, clung, to a truth. It lighted his way. It cast out any temptation to ‘sight-walk’ and enabled him to declare with such boldness, If the LORD delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, ‘a land which flows with milk and honey.’ Only do no rebel against the LORD, no fear the people of the land, for they are our bread....”

Colossians 3:1-2 states it with undeniable clarity: ...seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth..

A child of God can never be a grasshopper! He may choose to look at himself as such, but it is never what he is. Anakins are nothing compared to the awesomeness of God...the magnitude of who He is....the power of His presence with us. As Caleb knew and experienced first hand in Joshua, God never misses the target, even when the Anakin surround His beloved. And me, well, I’m His beloved. I’m tired of the desert, I don’t want to be sent back there....I’m eager to enter the Land of Promise.