When Hosea prophecies the tender healing of Israel, he doesn’t paint a Psalm 23 picture. No green pastures or quiet waters. On the contrary, the words of the Lord to his broken bride are this:

He leads us to the desert. That means that the barren place I find myself in might not be by accident, nor even a result of my own sin or failure. I might have been lured here. Drawn by a Spirit whose quiet voice I’ve trusted and proved faithful, followed without question.

Wait. I thought the desert was a dry place. A place of forsakenness. The place where outcasts go to hide, saints go to test their spirituality. How can anything good come from a desert? Why would I go to a place of death?

Where God is, there is life.

Where the Lord chooses to lure us for healing is his choice. Read on in Hosea (the end of chapter 2) and you’ll find a beautiful picture of healing and wholeness. A picture that defies the image of an aired desert. The desert becomes a womb in which God forms his people. Sometimes life grows where we least expect it. He knits us and forms us in the most unusual environments.

But always–ALWAYS–life grows with God, and only with God. Jesus came to give abundant life. Not easy life. Not quiet-waters life. But full life. Life that can’t be subject to death. Life that doesn’t wilt when the heat comes.

Where God is, there is life.

Please, friends. Don’t fight the lure of the Spirit, wherever it may lead.