Embracing The Desert's Aftermath

February 25th, 2006

You know how it can be for some of us, when we go through our old boxes or back-up CDs and discover stuff written some time ago... Tonight it happened to me, and I wanted to share this, written 5 years ago. How clearly we see the truth at the time, but how hard it is to bask in its revelatory essence, to be completely present in the present moment (eternity), because the incarnational experience of prophetic sight requires the journey to be somewhat complete or well underway, otherwise we don't really have the language to decode what we're seeing so clearly...

Thought it might be an encouragement for someone else... our prayers can be so revelatory.

Here goes:

Embracing The Desert Again
Oct 28, 2001

Never really wanted to think about it this way. I had had my share of struggles and loss in life. Wasn’t it time to bear some “destiny” fruit? To prove to myself and others close to me that I was not a failure? To display something of the grace of God at work in my life through daily engaging in works of Art that would touch others and allow me to earn a living?

So I thought. The result, after years of fighting against shadows in and out of myself, was seemingly disastrous. I was soon to turn forty-five years old, and still needed to walk through yet another season of brokenness. Well, I should say “embrace” the journey I had gone through instead of calling it failure. To see all of these years come to nothing of what I expected my life to be, when comparing to others, was quite a mountain before me. And I suspected it was a judgment against who I was, in fact, against my very existence.

I have not embraced the heart of it all: the motives of the heart. What the spirit within reaches for, out of an certain appetite, speaks of the affections of the heart. And the lies it believes. Thus, in all the gruesomeness of the desert season, still one thing remains: God rules. And the motivations of His heart are pure love. Hard to fathom and eagerly accept…

Hence, the desert. My thirst is not satisfied, and everything around amounts to temporary sustenance, crumbling like sand castles in the wind. Nothing I build succeeds to create a source of provision. I cannot prove I am someone because of what I have to “show for it”. Somehow I think I should be thankful to God for the pruning, revealing the misplaced affections and pointing me to Him as my source of identity. At times, I touch that place and bask in a peace beyond what I’ve ever known… Then it is challenged again by thoughts or events, and I tumble down into despair and rage, downplaying the importance and genuineness of my first experience of peace, doubting my very ability to truly walk in that everlasting grace.

But the desert… it is here, it feels like a life-size rugged cross slapped on my whole being. It also felt like the sum of my emotional turmoil, although real and painful, was based on something that carried a faulty portraying of truth. What I would call destiny, identity, my place in this world, and the agony of running out of time and energy to embrace the road again, all ganged up to become a burden I could not carry anymore, sinking in the sand, orphaned from my human dream of proving I had value through my giftings, talents, creativity, and my hopes and visions for a better world.

But I am not what I can do. I am what I am. It’s as if God chased my identity into the desert where it could hide no more its complex web of lies pulling me in constant vanity and pursuit of the wind disguised as “becoming who God intended me to be.” The desert: only two things can happen there: life or death. Survival based on surrendering, contentment and long-suffering, or survival based on scheming to never be caught there again in a state of helplessness and dependence.

I tried both ways. Today, I have to look and see where this has taken me. Letting go of the need to prove I was not a failure, that I am leaving something behind that’s of worth, eating of the fruit of my labor and blessing others through it. Not easy to read about other artists and their body of work. Comparison, Jealously, Bitterness, Anger, Rage, Despair, Isolation. I cannot continue this way. I want to see pass that, walk into the place where God is found to embrace those who embrace the cross of the desert.

There is nothing else left. I am thankful I can at least know there is hope now. I can choose to embrace the desert God is keeping me in till I can see my heart and His as well. I also choose to embrace the cross where the sum of all my dreams and pretenses are hung to die. Those dreams of riches and fame that seem to promise stability and the freedom to indulge in costly experiences of travel, extravagances and off-the-wall artistic explorations.

I am Andre, broke and broken in this desert of mine, and I call to my Creator to sustain and guide me, so that the chisel of His love remove the vanity born of my quest to sedate and remedy the hurt of my own incompleteness.

Lord, I embrace the desert, with the faith I have in your sanity and utterly extravagant love for me. Let me know that I am known, and reveal to me that one that I am, in You, and let peace flow like a river and my sonship become the strength of my life, the cornerstone of my identity. Amen.

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Five Years Later

Now, there is a time where the Lord leads us out of the desert, back into community in a new way, and that is now the season we are entering. Five years ago, I could not have imagine how things would turn out, but it's all good. We've are stepping through a new portal this year, crossing a threshold, and if what we know of the Lord is any indication, we know for sure that He is also releasing others from their own deserts, and connecting us all together one way or another.

And this present journey entails crossing a zone standing between the desert and the promise land. In that place, we receive new orders, new elements of vision, new companions, and we are putting into practice the lessons learned at such a high price... God sends us in His vineyard to tend it, not get drunk from it. It is a trek that requires consecration and dedication, in a very simple and truthful way. No hype here, only reality. Purpose. Co-labouring with God. Maybe publicly crucified. But through it all, as a friend of mine says: "keep your heart sweet."

And so here it is: 2006, the year of fulfillment of many visions that have been, for many, in gestation for about 20 years... what an exciting time to be alive, as we see the world around us shifting in its allegeances, we are still of a celestial kingdom, infusing God's message in the flesh of society through incarnated love. Out from the desert, into the Jordan, from the river into the desert, from the desert into newness of life, from newness of life to sacrifice, from sacrifice into obedience, from obedience to joy... in short, from the cross to the throne, but not as the world would define 'throne,' rather, as God sees it: Christ's eternal joy in fellowship.

See you soon! May you find your way to the starting blocks of the desert's edge, and be catapulted from there into a whole new race. It may be closer than you think...

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Soli Deo Gloria...

Andre Lefebvre

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