Wilderness ... to bring us to ourselves

Morning: Psalms 41, 52; Genesis 37:1-11; I Corinthians 1:1-19
Evening: Psalm 44; Mark 1:1–13

 The story says the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted.  ‘Wilderness’ is often a metaphor for a place or time of proving.  It’s impossible to live and avoid wilderness experiences of one kind or another. In one version of Jesus’s story, in the wilderness he faced his ‘demons’.  Wilderness is the potential threshold of a new reality.  But first it may be a frightening encounter with part of ourselves that we do not want to face.  When we come to ourselves, though, as the Prodigal Son did in another story, the wilderness will have done its work.