The Desert

ALAN MOOREHEAD was a renowned war correspondent for the London Daily Express and one of the most successful British writers of World War II. He eloquently described the setting of the war in North Africa:

Yellow rocks, saltbush, grey earth, and this perfect beach was the eternal background wherever you looked in the north of the Western Desert. Except at spots along the coast and far inland it never even achieved those picturesque rolling sandhills which Europeans seem always to associate with deserts. It had fresh colours in the morning and immense sunsets. One clear hot cloudless day followed another in endless progression. A breeze stirred sometimes in the early morning, and again at night when one lay on a camp bed in the open, gazing up into a vaster and more brilliant sky than one could ever have conceived in Europe . . . there was a sense of rest and relaxation in the tremendous silence, especially at night, and now the silence is still the best thing I remember of the desert, the silence, the cool nights, the clear hot days and the eternal flatness of everything.

When I first read this description, I was impressed with its almost biblical quality. On reflection, this is no accident. The historical events presented in the Bible take place over practically the same desert as the one described here. The desert was not only the scene of many biblical events, it was also a powerful metaphor. Practically surrounding Israel, it was a place of hardship, punishment, and testing. God’s salvation was likened to the gift of water and new life to a parched earth. The desert was a place of special significance to Jesus, where He found respite and a place of blessed solitude. Just like each one of us, He needed alone time, to reflect and to pray, and to renew His relationship with the Father. We should each seek out our own ‘desert time’ in contemplative prayer.