Reflection Questions
Question number 4: When you imagine a wilderness experience, what emotions stir in you? I think for me there is a mixture of excitement and fear. The adrenaline starts pumping. If I pray, I gain a sense of peace. I still know there is danger, but prayer helps me get back in touch with my center connected to God. Then creativity starts to stir. New ideas begin to come. I am more open to others who might join me on the wilderness journey. I also know that without sojourns through the wilderness, I stop exploring life, and I stop developing what God has placed within me. So the wilderness is a gift--not that I always want to accept it! What is the wilderness like for you?
Brian
Brian
posted by Melanie at 9:29 AM
1 Comments:
1) What drives me into the wilderness? Often it is other people, or emotions that I do not want/do not know how to deal with. I run away into the wilderness to get away from them.
2) What are my temptations in this place? In what ways am I tempted to overreach my human limitations? One temptation is to just stay there and not face what has driven me into the wilderness in the first place. Even though I have been “driven here”, it is often tempting to try to transform and/or imagine the wilderness to be something it is not and never can be. How am I tempted to overreach my human limitations? I guess that by trying to transform the wilderness, often by thinking I can turn it inside out and pretending that I am not the one in the wilderness, everyone else is.
3) What images appear to me at each of “the devil’s” tempting statements?
I. I cannot imagine myself in Jesus’ position. But knowing that I had the power to turn water into wine, or feed the multitudes with just a few loves and fishes, I would think that I might have thought about doing this without the devil’s tempting. I would hope that knowing the devil was tempting me to do so would strengthen my resolve not to. I can imagine Jesus being just bothered considering the devil’s temptation a pesky invasion of his privacy in the wilderness.
II. I cannot imagine the devil temping me with earthly authority, when I allready had heavenly authority, and the gall that he would want me to worship him would throw me into a rage. I cannot imagine no matter how calmly or rashly said , responding with only “ It is written ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him‘.”
III. I have taken studies before and they have explained how the temptations escalated. So I know that this is supposed to be the “pinnacle” of the tests so to speak, but I have often found it lame. An image that it brings to mind is two kids in an argument. The one not getting his own way finally resorting to “Oh yeah, prove it! The reason you will not turn the stones into bread is because you cannot.” The devil cannot tempt Jesus, so he tries to trick him.
What I find interesting about the temptation story is that in both Matthew and Luke it can be read that the devil did not temp Jesus until after the forty days and nights were completed.
4) What emotions stir in me when in a wilderness experience? Anger, frustration, sometimes hopelessness.
5) Who are my angels in the wilderness? Family, friends, especially those from my Bible studies.
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