S(Jeremiah 2:2) Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord, "I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown . . . "
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God remembers with deep and tender delight Israel's respondent love with Him as they discovered the joys of His presence and the depths of His goodness. He compared their 40 years of separation from the world (chronicled in Exodus) to that of an excellent honeymoon of lovers. He designed that experience so that all distractions were removed: "they followed Him into a land unsown and uncultivated." It was a latently rich land.
A (Psychological)
In studying the effects of trauma, scientists have discovered two of our memory storage systems: Narrative and Implicit. Narrative is a language-based, highly structured storage and retrieval system. Implicit (even located separately in the brain) is a non-language-based storage system where highly charge emotional memories--primarily of the senses--are stored. PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is largely a breakdown between these memory systems. In peaceful, safe relationships healing and reorganization of these memories can occur. It involves using language to sort and provide meaning to these powerful, survival-charged memories. That describes, too, the value of wilderness times with the Lord. In the peacefulness of His presence, His Word brings meaning and value and right-thinking. He heals our brains as He sets us up to become better equipped for life back in the noisy, distracting world.
A (Personal)
I, too, remember my "honeymoon" with the Lord. Primarily, in college, late at night I'd walk a path into a nearby forested, overgrown creek bank. It was isolated behind offices that were used during the day. There, kneeling or sitting on a fallen log, I'd cry out to God, offering myself wholly to Him. There I practiced repentance and intercession. There, with my whole adult life, latent and uncultivated ahead of me, I discovered spiritual waiting, longing, yielding, and resolving. There I took my first baby steps in becoming known with a spiritual identity and purpose.
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Master, Savior, Lord ... This day, too, is full of unseen possibilities. May the good seeds sown by Your Word then and newly sown today to bear fruit in the fullness of Your calendar. Help my devotion to remain alive and without disease and without me becoming a dead artifact of history. I am ready to follow You again today--even into a barren wilderness because even there You're ready to create a rich garden.
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