The Joshua Tree - A desert Parable - Sighing and the Divine Response

Written and posted by Jean-Louis Mondon

Prologue

The Scream by Edvard Münch

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SIGHING AND THE DIVINE RESPONSE

This is the first installment of a story in several episodes called: "The Joshua Tree, A Desert Parable".

"The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. I open my mouth and pant, (or sigh) longing for your commands. Turn to me and have mercy on me, as you always do to those who love your name. Direct my footsteps according to your word." Psalm 119:130-133.

Sighing is not the only prerogative  of lovers languishing and waiting for the beloved or the facial expression of discouragement of a student facing homework that is beyond his intellectual capability. It is in fact as inherent to man as laughter is.
All sighs do not possess the same value or meaning. There are sighs that loose their weight in the immensity of a cruel, merciless universe that can lead to despair and even death in the absence of a saving answer. Such is the condition of the human being without God. Can the answer to the mysteries of life be found without asking pertinent questions about it?

In my generation, Nihilism, the Absurd of Eugene Ionesco’s theater, artistic expressions such as the painting “The Scream” by Edvard Münch, the literature and the life style of intellectuals such as Camus and Sartre were faithful mirrors reflecting the alienation, the despair and the perplexity, all, experiences of our modern life. They had no valid and satisfying solution to offer for the complexity of more and more insurmountable problems. The influence of their promising modern ideologies and philosophies have only produced a bitter fruit poisoning the existence of a humanity close to her last sigh.

However, there is another sigh that comes out of the depth of the human being. In Ecclesiates 3:11, the wise King Solomon declares that: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity (the thought of eternity) in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end”.
It is the act of sighing or panting that best expresses this absolutely essential need of a human being suffering from separation in the search for his creator who alone can satisfy his deepest need.
The Lord God is the Father (Creator) of the spirits of all mankind and he wants to guide us by his word, by the sound of his voice on our way back to our eternal home. In Numbers 27:15, 18,  Moses said to the LORD, “May the LORD, the God who gives breath to all living things, appoint someone over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the LORD’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd”. So the LORD said to Moses, "Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him;

Before one can go out, before knowing freedom, one has to find the door to go in that leads to liberty, to eternal life, to our destination. Who is this man, this guide? What is this door, where can it be found? So many questions, so many sighs!

What about you my reader, my friend, are you asking yourself these same questions? Do you know these deep sighs that will only be fully satisfied with a response that would fill the deepest part of your soul? God knows your thoughts even before they are formed in your brain. In fact, it is he who is seeking you. He is just waiting for you to sigh, he understands the burdens that we bear.  
Jesus invites you: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”. Matthew 11:28.

To be continued. click  Here to go to the next chapter

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Hope to see you again.

Jean-Louis.