Into a Land Flowing With Milk And Honey

I had been wandering in the desert of quiet desperation
2 ½ years, being sustained only by the grace of the One
who tucked away a promise in the unconscious depths of my soul
of a land flowing with milk and honey.

There had been better days.
I prospered in my own ambitions
of being my own Pharaoh and building my own pyramids,
enjoying all my life around the River Nile of family, church, and good fortune,
paying homage to the god of this river for a while.

But a drought soon swept across this land;
the river turned to blood, blisters found on the palms of my hands.
Building the pyramids became my vain obsession
on which all my soul energy was wasted,
and then I became a dried-up withering young seed blowing in the wind without direction.

It took me a long time to realize
that I was driven out of Egypt that I had longed for,
out of the comfort zone of my personal ambition religion
that created a hollowness in me that had to be filled
with the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey.

But now this hollowness had caused me to thirst.
I went from walking listlessly under the hot, beating desert sun
to baby crawling, with an infantile reach forward
toward an imaginary oasis to moisten and refresh my parched soul.

Then from the same cloudless sky upon which the cruel sun was fixed,
just over the horizon was the promise of an approaching storm.
Rain, rain on me; I stood up again with outstretched arms,
looking up again and welcoming the day in September 1997
when, in return for helping a young black man understand some calculus,
I got introduced to my Soul Provider.

This series of storms raged on for a year,
but now I began to understand the peaceful weather I sought after the storm
was a gift from the Provider, and a prelude to friendly sunny skies and a moist sweetness in the air
of the Promised Land that was flowing with milk and honey.

Then, throughout the summer and into September 1998,
the clouds began to subside, and I could see rays of heaven’s light break through the clouds.
After I looked at myself, my clothes were starting to tear, as if I was a child beginning to outgrow them.
The dried-up seed planted in me had died so my soul could germinate into a blooming rose.

I had now reached the end of the desert.
I just knew there was something beautiful over the majestic snow-capped mountains.
But I ran across a well in my steady approach toward the promising horizon,
and my spirit was compelled to draw water joyfully from this wellspring of salvation.

A fountain then began to spring up from the depths of my wellspring;
continual upwellings, from my diaphragm to my mouth,
cleansed, healed, refreshed, and flowed freely,
and made me into a whole new creation.

Climbing over the mountains, I saw in the distance the Promised Nation,
and the source of the River of Life flowing to the nation,
the wet feeling of which I knew all too well.
I dove in whole-heartedly, going for a swim;
I swam and swam, and saw to one side
water gushing forth from the Rock,
and thirsty people from all directions came to the Rock and drank.
Moses smiled at me and waved, and now I understood
that this River was now flowing to the Throne of the God who rules
over the land flowing with milk and honey.