The Desert (Part 1) – Sacrifice for a Real Relationship

A few weeks ago I embarked on a trip to Joshua Tree, California with some friends of mine and others from around the country. It was a solitude trip where we would spend 8 days in the desert, 5 of which in solitude, and 3 of those days fasting – seeking God in prayer and Scriptures. And that’s it. For the most part, just me and God.

(Me: upper left, red hat)

Mostly for reasons stated in my previous post, “Dirty Rocks and other Distractions”, I knew that this was something I needed to experience, as much as I had heard from friends of mine who had done it that it was going to suck. And it did suck. A lot.

• 3 mile hike into the desert, uphill, with 80 pounds of gear on my back. I’m not an athletic dude, and I didn’t prepare my body well… so the hike was not fun.
• 5 days of solitude, no one to talk to. Also very difficult (but not as difficult for me as others, because I’m an introvert).
• 3 days of fasting – worst part of the trip. Dreaming of all kinds of food on day 1 of the fast is torture when you know you still have 2 days to go. And at the end of the fast is only a glorified handful of trail mix and a couple pieces of beef jerky.

For the most part, my time in the desert was both mentally and physically exhausting. I slept terribly, smelled awful (no showers), and really struggled through many times of just hitting a wall where I just didn’t want to do anything; was bored of the Bible, bored of writing, bored of hiking around, bored of looking at big rocks all around, and for 3 days didn’t even have food to look forward to to move the day along.

That’s really the cliff notes version of the non-spiritual side of the trip, and so I’m sure it’s easy to wonder why anyone would put themselves up to such discomfort. I mean, couldn’t I have just prayed in my bedroom just the same? Gone out into the woods for a day and read my Bible? Yes. But for me, I knew there was a lot to be gained from sacrifice, and judging by what my friends had told me – how much their lives were changed by their experiences in the desert – I knew I had to bite the bullet. And I can attest, there is something completely different about getting far out of your element and positioning yourself to be completely alone with God, and to experience hardship for the sake of a deeper intimacy with God.

Hebrews 12 has this to say about hardship:

Endure hardship as discipline…  no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

And that’s exactly what I received. The desert was hard. Totally uncomfortable. Certainly not a vacation. But I hiked out of there a changed man, or at least a strengthened one.

God really did speak to me in the desert, and I will unpack some of that in posts to come, but I want to end this post with this: God is real. He is relevant, and you really can have a relationship with him. Life, and death for that matter, look a whole lot different through the lens of a relationship with God. This relationship is not about going to church. It’s not about reading the Bible, and it’s not about saying certain prayers. It’s not about “organized religion”, or your past experiences with Christians. God is bigger than that, and when you have an encounter with him, and you begin to know him apart from any preconceived notions about religion, choosing to sacrifice comfort in exchange for intimacy in that relationship no longer seems crazy.

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