Deserts. I love living in the Tucson desert. Yes, summers are hot, but from October until March it’s beautiful. Oh, we get winter storms, but it doesn’t snow very often, and when it does it’s a beautiful white dusting on the cactus that is gone by mid-day.  I love the variety of cacti, catching a glimpse of a roadrunner, coyote or javalina running by, seeing the mountains.  I love watching a storm roll in, and the smells just before the rain starts, then the glorious rainbows that follow.  I love the huge open skies, especially at night when I can see the Milky Way.  I’m struck at those times with how insignificant I am in this vast universe.  

What don’t I like about deserts?  The rattlers, scorpions, bugs, spiders, cactus spines – like a rose, they are beautiful but have deadly spikes!  I especially don’t like spiritual deserts, and I seem to be in the middle of one right now, with no discernible way out.  I feel at times like I’m wandering, think I found a way out, only to discover that those are my own tracks that I’m following.  

So what happens when I find myself lost in a spiritual desert?  I look for that way out, because I know it's there. I need to take my eyes off the ground and quit looking at my steps and getting sidetracked by following something that will just leave me wandering in never-ending circles. I won't find the way out by looking down, but looking up.   I need to stop looking back at where I've been, but look ahead to where I'm going.  Reading in Experiencing God this morning reminded me of that.  One of the passages of scripture was Philippians 3:14-15 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (ESV)

Look at that night sky. It is filled with stars that will guide me out of the desert, if I only let them and know how to read them and apply what I read.  Those stars are found in the Word of God.  Ask the Lord to show me the way out of the desert. And He will.