Why fear the wilderness? Although at first
It may seem desolation, nothing more,
Yet this experience is meant to be
One of progression to a higher goal.
Here Hagar, wandering blindly, cut adrift
From safe, familiar moorings she had known,
For the first time could hear the angel voice
Which bade her rise and trust the care of God.
When the twelve tribes walked through these arid wastes
With their stark loneliness, they were afraid
And even pleaded that they might return
To bondage in a hated alien land,
If so they might escape Love's chastening rod;
Yet here this whole rebellious people saw
God's presence, manifest as cloud and fire,
Which led them up and out of fleshliness
Through weary years of needed discipline
And welded all the best each tribe had gained
In one united nation, Israel.
Because the Master walked so close to God
His wilderness experience was brief;
But since the burden he assumed for us
Was more than even he could bear alone,
God's angels comforted and strengthened him
And walked with him to final victory.
