The Wilderness
7 April 2015, Age 19
Alma 34:26 … ye must (1) pour out your souls in your (2) closets, and your secret places, and in your (3) wilderness.”
(1) pour out your souls: this is a very intense image to me and strikes me deeply. This isn’t just a normal prayer or a night-time prayer of 2 minutes, this is taking quiet time, going to a quiet place, getting on your knees and opening up your mind, heart, and spirit, and literally pouring out the deep things of your soul unto God. This is a very real and very powerful source of communication with our Father in Heaven, one in which we should have often.
(2) closets – a quiet and private place
(3) wilderness – for me this is very meaningful…”ye must pour out your souls…in your wilderness.” A wilderness is different for everyone (often many times throughout their lives). A wilderness is defined as “(a) an uncultivated, uninhabited and inhospitable region; (b) a neglected or abandoned area.”
We will all go through the “wilderness” and be in a “wilderness” in our lives. A place where we feel alone, a place that we feel is uninhabited. No one else is there with us or has been there before – no one knows where we are or what it is like to be there. We feel like no one knows what we are going through. We are in an inhospitable place. We do not feel loved, we do not feel peace, we do not see light, we do not feel connected. We are in the dark, confused, hurt, utterly alone. Being in an uninhabited and an inhospitable wilderness is like carrying a heavy and burdensome load down a dark road, no one is around you, you feel lost and scared but don’t know where or who to turn to, because you think no one has been in your wilderness before, that no one can take that load from you, that no one can show you the escape path to peace.
The wilderness is a neglected and an abandoned area. And that is exactly how you will feel when you are in your wilderness. Neglected. Abandoned. It is a horrible, lonely, dark, desperate, and unavoidable deep, long, dark canyon, and there is pain, hurt, heartache, sin, guilt, shame, despair, loneliness, depression, anxiety, illness, mental health, death, suicide, darkness, evil, temptation, and all manner of sadness that encircles us about in this canyon and in our wilderness. And we must walk this path through this canyon and through our wilderness alone. But if we pour out our souls to our Savior, to our God, to our Redeemer, then He will be there. He is there. To lead us, to guide us, to love us, to show us the way, the light. To comfort us, to bring us peace, to give us hope. To give us courage and strength to continue. He is the path, the life and the light. He walked that canyon Alone so that we never have to. He walked through that wilderness, he atoned in that wilderness, he bled in that wilderness, was accused, ridiculed, beaten down, and crucified and died in that wilderness. You may feel that you are in an uninhabited and inhospitable place and wilderness. That you are neglected and have been abandoned. But you are not. He has been in that wilderness before, and He is there with you now. At every moment, every step, the whole way forever. But only if you let him…find a quiet place, humble yourself. Get on your knees in your wilderness and pour out your soul to Him. For He is there, He will comfort you. He will show you the way.