After a harrowing drive that included roads closed ahead of us and a ground blizzard that left us with visibility of no more than ten to fifteen feet, we are back in Arizona. We are happy to be safe and where it is a little warmer and a little calmer.
We took our first big desert 4-wheeler ride yesterday on a trail we’d done last year. This time Karl didn’t roll his ride within the first 50 feet of the trail’s start, so that in itself was a win. We explored in and around several mines (the fact that they are there, open and accessible, and with no ‘Keep out! Danger!’ signs makes me shake my head – but of course we KNOW there is the possibility of danger in an abandoned mine, but does that keep us from poking our noses in? Nope.)
We crawled over rocks and stood in awe at the vistas. Amazing. God’s might is evident in volcanoes and thunderstorms, in unrelenting tides and snow squalls. It would be easy in this inhospitable and foreboding place where every plant and each rock has sharp edges and thorns to think God is absent. But when I look closely His character – His attention to detail and care for the large and the minuscule – are evident to me in the desert. Nothing here is loveable. Nothing here is, on the surface, beautiful, yet each cactus and scruffy tree, each outcropping of jagged rock has evidence of God’s creativity and His care.
This comforts me. I know that inside me there is a lot of wasteland. There are many areas in me filled with barbs and briars that make me a forbidding trek for my indwelling Savior. But just like in the desert where it is clear God is sovereign and where Jesus Himself spent most of His time, I know that God sees the beauty and worth in me. He hasn’t walked away, He is willing to walk within.
