i think i'm beginning to understand the concept of a spiritual wilderness. my roommate last year and one of our friends used to refer to it all the time, which struck me as weird and incongruent because they had two of the most mature faiths i've ever been around.

this is my definition - being driven to an increasingly deeper understanding of how meaningless life is without the sweetness of the Lord, yet being unable to taste it. desire and knowledge of Him, without the experience.

is it being driven to spiritual desperation that lets us know with certainty that we want nothing more than Him? is it a God-given thirst for Him that strips the paint off everything and transforms it all into a meaning-less wilderness? everything becomes lackluster without Him. it seems like a cruel method - making someone want something so much through withholding it.

but it's a strange kind of withholding. you can't know much you're missing, unless you know how much you're missing. you can't wail and wallow in spiritual destitution unless you know how destitute you are. and you can't know how destitute you are unless you have a reference point. and you can't know what the reference point is unless you've actually encountered it.

the silence of God - written about by people like shusaku endo, mother theresa, and king david. one has an unhappy ending, one may or may not have a happy ending, and one seems to leap straight out of the wilderness into His presence.

king david wrote psalm 13, which is broken into two tremendously dissonant sections. what happened exactly, in the unwritten space between sections?

How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
Lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed over him," lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

But I have trusted in your steadfast love; and my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.

the present - the silence of God. the past - His steadfast love, His bountiful dealings. the future - our rejoicing, our song. there is no devastating logic, only devastating perseverance and faith. in the end, it seems to be the wilderness itself that gets devastated.

but for now, the sleep of death still threatens. the blessing at the end of the Jacobian night of struggle is still many layers of darkness away.