Article November 18, 1967 Issue

Rejoicing in the Wilderness

SARAH SAVAGE

Most of us have heard at some period in life a call such as came to Abraham in God's words: "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee."^{Gen. 12:1;} Finding this promised land, for which all familiar things are to be forsaken, may involve moving to a new geographical area or leaving an old, established business or profession for a new way of earning one's living. Or it could mean abandoning an inherited system of religion to receive a new education in the knowledge of God.

Whatever the ultimate goal, this great adventure inevitably demands stepping out into the unknown. We may view with awe the prospect of finding ourselves where there are no familiar landmarks and where our past experience will be no guide. Yet, though it may seem like going out into a trackless wilderness, we need not fear that we shall be lonely and unhappy, if we are responding to divine leading.

When we read in the Bible the story of Abraham's sojourn in the wilderness, we are impressed with the childlike trust of this great patriarch and the simplicity with which he worked out every situation. How different is the account of the journeyings of his enslaved descendants who, when they were delivered, saw only wasteland in the wilderness that lay before them and yearned for the fleshpots of Egypt!

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