I don’t think my life has ever felt as overwhelming as in the six months since Teddy’s birth. He’s been a fussy baby, often requiring long evenings of bouncing and rocking. Often, I’ve planned a day’s work only to throw my plans out the window and spend the hours feeding and comforting a baby, throwing some food on the table and giving a toddler some necessary attention in the off moments. 

Pre-baby, I don’t think I could have guessed how much time and energy one tiny body can require. 

Staying off dairy has helped. Finding out Teddy had been dealing with silent reflux and getting him on an acid blocker has helped. 

But the journey has been arduous. Add to it several minor health issues that have stolen corners of joy, and the time-pressed strain on relationships —let’s just say I’ve been feeling parched, famished, dusty, worn. 

Panting and listless, I tried to think of something genuine to share in this issue’s column and remembered a verse that’s been running through my head lately. A phrase really, not a whole verse: Cloud by day, fire by night.

The phrase comes from Exodus 13:21-22: “The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.”

This verse became meaningful to me recently as I wondered how on earth to triage my tasks and pursue in a day what was truly important. How can I meet the needs of those people God calls me to without taking unnecessary responsibility for what is not mine to fix? 

The pillars of cloud and fire represent God’s Holy Spirit guidance, day by day, moment by moment, and I’ve claimed those pillars for myself. 

I think now of other spiritual applications from the Israelites’ wanderings and write this article for you who are now dragging weary feet through dusty soil. 

I am indebted to Bible scholar Chuck Pike for a sermon exploring these wilderness metaphors. In that sermon, he quoted 1 Corinthians 10:11: “These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.”

The Israelites’ wilderness wanderings parallel the Christian life, representing a time of testing and trial. Egypt represents sin and the world. The Red Sea crossing represents baptism. And Canaan represents our promised paradise. 

In 1 Corinthians 10, the Holy Spirit warns us through the pen of Paul not to desire evil as the children of Israel did during their wilderness journey. They became idolaters, indulged in sexual immorality, tested Christ, complained — and all these actions were followed by consequences far more grievous than a parched throat and dusty shoes. 

Hang in there, Paul tells us. God is faithful. 

For 40 years, God gave his people manna to eat. Every day there was enough, and never more than enough. In the same way, God’s Word is our spiritual sustenance. We cannot absorb enough on Sunday to last the rest of the week but must renew our minds every day. 

I remind myself of this — I who have been feeling so empty of late. Recently I heard a tired mama say that when her reading feels pointless, when her mind is too full or too tired to absorb, she claims the promise that “[My Word] shall not return unto me void” (Isaiah 55:11, KJV). 

When the people thirsted, God gave them water from a rock. In 1 Corinthians 10:4, Paul tells us who that rock represents: “[Our ancestors] drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” 

In John 4, Jesus told the Samaritan woman he was the source of living water. Several chapters later, he cried out to a crowd that whoever was thirsty should drink from him and from them also would come rivers of living water. “He said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive,” John explains (7:39). 

Parched as I may feel, this spiritual life is mine for the asking. 

Forty years of weary trudging, and the people’s shoes (Deuteronomy 29:5) were as good as new. I suppose that children who grew to the next size could pass their shoes to their little brother or sister and on down the line. Maybe one day their grandchildren wore those same shoes on the other side of the Jordan. 

For “my God shall supply all your need,” you wilderness wanderers. “And as thy days, so shall thy strength be.”