Wilderness

I read the Genesis passage for this Sunday this morning. It is Genesis 21:8-21. It is the story of Sarah asking Abraham to dismiss Hagar into the wilderness, as well as her son.

It is a story many know. Africans being plucked from their homeland and placed into a foreign land to be enslaved. Laborers leaving their homes in Latin America, facing an unknown trek, only perhaps to be forced back, or work with little to no rights. A gay son who is kicked out of his house, left with nowhere to go but the streets. All are dangerous; all are wilderness experiences.

When I came out in South Carolina, trying to navigate the Baptist climate as a queer bear who clung to my spirituality was a wilderness; but so was being spiritual in the LGBT community.

Though it is not part of this Genesis lesson, its implications are their. In these wilderness experiences, we are like the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for seems like forty years. Some of us even lose faith in God because we find the wilderness too overwhelming, give up hope, and move on.

God is not my co-pilot, but compass. I have found my way out of my past wilderness without he help of close friends I was pointed to. Now, I face the wilderness of a future looming on the horizon, but I follow my compass through meditation and focusing on the voice of God.