Heart Tracks - Wilderness Worship

"And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, "Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me (worship Me) in the wilderness.' " Exodus 5:1

While looking at the Charisma magazine website, I saw an announcement about the death from breast cancer of an Alaskan missionary named Yolanda Pratt. Wanting to know more, I visited her Facebook page, which was filled with inspiring videos she had recently recorded. The latest was done two months ago. In it she referenced the above Scripture, and spoke of what was gained when we actually worship Him in the wilderness, and what was lost when we refused to. She said our willingness to worship Him even in the depths of the wilderness will always result in a drawing nearer, deeper into Him. That in our worship, we will experience assurance, hope, peace, joy, and life. She said our refusal to do so always leads us to repeat the failure of the Israelite people there. In the wilderness, she said, the people's trait was to "wonder where God was." She said that tendency to wonder caused their hearts, minds and lives to "wander," and to completely miss what the Father wanted them to know and experience in their wilderness time. Pratt was in the midst of her own personal wilderness. In it, she chose to worship, and in the worship, minister to others walking through their own.

The wilderness awaits all those who truly follow Him. The Lord Jesus walked into it, and there He worshiped His Father. We who follow Him will go into it as well. What will we do there? Will we, like the Israelites, "wonder" and then "wander?" Or, will we worship Him there? Will we, despite the desert landscape, the lack of all things visible, choose to worship He who may be invisible in the natural, but fully seen in the supernatural exercise of faith? Will we wonder and wander, or will we enter into a deeper understanding and experience of Him than we have ever known?

Yolanda Pratt died less than two months after this video. We can be sure she died in the act of worship. No, she didn't get the response, the healing she surely desired, but she did get the Father her heart so desired, and a "healing" that transcends the temporal and enters into the eternal. Wilderness worship is not first about getting out of the wilderness, or getting what we want there. It is about getting Him, laying hold of Him. It is about experiencing He who is the Anchor of our souls and lives. Yolanda Pratt, living in a fallen world, was led out into the wilderness that is cancer. There, she worshiped Him. Cancer did not own her, He did. Cancer, as the Scripture promises, could not separate her from the love of her Father. A love that saw her fully reach her home in Him. The wilderness, if we will trust Him there, will always lead us to His Promised Land.

Whatever your or my wilderness might be today, will we worship Him there? Will we refuse to wonder and wander? Will we discover in our wilderness, a God greater than that wilderness? Will we worship Him and be free...even in the midst of the wilderness?

Blessings,
Pastor O