wilderness worship

Dunes de Merzouga, originally uploaded by Alexbip.

So we're looking at the Tabernacle in my Bible study group. It's mind-blowing stuff, this concept that God wants to dwell with us.

Anyways, we were revisiting the passage where Moses confronts Pharaoh. I know the story, I've read it so many times, seen the movie, seen the animated movie, seen the flannel characters in Sunday School, etc. So it was tempting to skim, after all the whole point was 'Let My people go', right?

But then it hit me... It says 'Let My people go, that they may worship Me in the wilderness'.

God calls us into the wilderness - where things are dry, fruitless, directionless, hopeless, joyless - so that our eyes have nothing else to focus on but his face. So that we stop relying on ourselves. So that we see his sovereignty. So that we will worship him.

How's that for a slap of perspective?