DISCOVERING DESERTS

Discover the deserts.

Words we would rarely, if ever, think to string together.

Deserts are dry, barren places. Dusty with a light breeze, but more often than not, completely still. Where few things live and the most movement comes from the crumbling sands – things falling apart because there is nothing to hold them together. The sun is hot and unrelenting and the nights cold and lonely. Deserts are both mundane and incredibly frightening.

We all find ourselves in a desert season eventually. The kind of moments that come upon us when we never asked for them. We never wanted to be in a place where we feel we aren’t growing. Where we have no direction. Where no matter how much we try and try, we can’t seem to get a grasp on where we are. We can’t seem to find our footing to stand. We are weak, exhausted, and the desert soil gives us no depth to grow.

What can we do? What is there to be discovered in the mundane? In the stillness of crumbling sands?

We don’t usually get to decide how long the desert season will last or how long we will be there, but we do have a choice on what we will do while we are there. We can stay where we are and find only scorching heat and all that is withered within us – or we can choose to be pioneers.

We can discover the deserts.

How do you pioneer in a desert you cannot escape, in a place where your roots can barely hold on? See, we define success and growth in terms of our achievements or productivity. But deserts offer growth in perspective.

In places where you can’t find depth, you should seek perspective.

Discover what you can see in deserts that perhaps you will never find elsewhere.

What is there to see in a place with an empty horizon and landscape – a front row seat to wonder. In a horizon line uninterrupted by all we have to do or be, we see the sun in its fullest glory. We see brilliance awakening the day, and when the night is darkest, we see stars we have never seen before. Wonders we have never discovered! Wonders we could never discover if we were to be anywhere else. Choose to pioneer beyond distractions and busyness to stillness.

Deserts have a way of helping us to see clearer, to see both the great and the simple.

We can focus on everything that we don’t have, or we can focus on the greater things, the things beyond our limitations. Greater possibilities and views that are impossible to find even if we were the tallest tree or most productive. Productivity does not equal perspective. And there are times in all of our lives where we desperately need to see things more than we need to be things. More than we need to be successful or to be thriving, there are times when we need stillness. To see what is around us, and perhaps to even see what is within us – both broken and beautiful.

Know your geography, and be where you are.

Discover the deserts.