They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?
Exodus 14:11
Focus for a minute on that one question with me gang.
Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?”
The obsession with death in the wilderness is the response of a group of people who have suffered from DID and PTSD. They cannot see the issue for their woundedness, and Moses, with his emotional issues, and spiritual issues, still brought them out.
So, why did they go to the widerness? What was the purpose of the wilderness? The Israelites asked “why the wilderness”.
Here is my response to that question.
First of all and less importantly, to shake the dust off of their feet, because they were OBSESSED WITH SERVING the Egyptians.
Second of all, and more importantly, to learn how to handle the top priority, the thing of first importance. There are few things in the wilderness that are not desolate. Few oases, few plants, few animals, few things, compared with the life in the jungle or Canaanland.
The most important reason G-d got them out into the wilderness was so they could do the one thing the L-rd told Pharaoh.
To worship G-d.
To hold a feast to the L-rd.
To connect with Him.
And come hell or high wather, they were going to learn to worship.
Look, as someone with PTSD and potentially a part or two, let me speak from personal experience that G-d is going to bring you through some travesties and into a desolate place so you can be alone with Him, and learn Him, and understand Him.
He is still Father (Exodus 4:22), even when you are generatiaonally-damaged. And He may not always use mothers gloves to bring you out of the situation that has caused you torment.
There may be a season where He uses both father’s gloves and mother’s gloves to do His purposes.
It is a good thing, gang, when we are brought out, and so we can see Him, see the cloud and the fire, and the G-d in the Pillar.
It’s not always about how badly we hurt, and it is not always about what’s wrong with us. Truthfully, there wil be seasons of healing and softness, but the season of deliverance and liberation that precedes that season of healing may feel harsh, and it may land harsh.
This is where the work of deliverance requires, by turns, a mothering touch and a fathering touch.
It’s not going to always be a deliverance that is done in the manner that you and I want it done.
That said, the deliverance will be effective.
In the case of Israel, they had generational PTSD/DID and maybe some Ritual Abuse as well, and they were party to watching G-d kill many of their captors.
Beyond that, they had to learn how to walk as sons, and some still did not get it.
But G-d delivered them and drove them out of Mizraim.
To a quiet, desolate place.
To the place where their focus would be undivided, in order to learn Him and learn who He was.
Why the wilderness?
To learn worship, to actually worship, and to recieve what was necessary in terms of a hundred different lessons on how to grow into a place of sonship, sufficiency, and interdependence.
Likewise, with us, He determines to lead us out in order to lead us in…into His presence. Both/and. Sons/Brides. Giving/Receiving, Plus/Minus, Multiplication/Division, Roots/Exponents, Grammar/Lit/Comp/Vocab.
Whole package deliverance.
Fullness.
בְּשָׁל֑וֹם
That is, wholeness.
Not just their bodies, but also their mindsets, their spirits, their emotions, their engrained thoughts that were off, their strongholds, their resistances to His influence, and their expectations of Him and the Egyptians, all of which needed a drastic overhaul and realignment.
So it may be with us.
The first place we must visit after trauma is a Trauma unit in a Trauma Center. And they may bring pain in order to bring life. But, just the same, it will get better, if we move towards the scary process.
May we do so with the company of a mothering peeps if possible, but if not possible, let us still move toward it with a Father who can help us in quietness, and who has an abundance of the Fruit of the Spirit.