Praying in the Desert

Here are some suggestions for getting into praying with Jesus in the desert. You'll need a bible and some paper and pen.

• Read Matthew 4:1-11 and draw a desert.
• Ponder your desert drawing, imagining yourself there. What do you like? What don't you like? What frightened you?
• What would be difficult for you in the desert?
• Have you ever had a desert time in your life? How do the different aspects of your drawing reflect the aspects of your own desert time?
• The Holy Spirit moved Jesus into the desert. It was part of his preparation after his call at the River Jordan. In the desert Jesus confronted all of the dangers of the desert: thirst, hunger, heat, cold, insects, animals, and loneliness. He also confronted Satan and was tempted with easy ways out. The most important part, though of his time in the desert is that he encountered his Father in the situation, without the distractions of everyday life. There he began to live the relationship with God that he discovered at the River.
• You too have moments of desert in your life, when you feel tested by Satan, tested by events in your life or even tested by God. There may be demons that want to control your life. You may be tempted by the "easy way out." In the desert you cannot escape the sun that shines into your shadows, your lies, your falseness, your fears, and your resistance to God.
• Your desert is dry. It's not a place of consolation but a place that tests our motivation. There you learn to love the God of consolation instead of the consolations of God.
• You too may be afraid in the desert. There you confront your fears, your lack of faith and learn to trust God.
• Desert fasting is like desert sun. It illuminates the negative in your life. Fasting leaves you in a bad mood. We feel at our worst and sense our fragility. Fasting helps us confront our motivation in life: in what do I trust? what do I need? to what am I attached? Fasting stretches the spiritual muscles.
• Praying in the desert is at the boundary between life and death, where you can most clearly see who you really are. To pray without this reality is false. You come face to face with God where you can see the deepest reality of your call clearly, where you can learn to respond "Yes."
• Reflect over other biblical passages that have to do with deserts. Jesus' time in the desert was illuminated by the experience of his ancestors there: Exodus 16 and 17, Hosea 2:16-25.
• Sit down to pray. Empty yourself, as an excursion into your desert. Write all of your images, desires, feelings, thoughts, memories and distractions that pass through your mind, opening all of this ("That's me!") to the Love of God. Then open yourself to God without words, or with only one word. Stay in that space for 15 to 20 minutes.
• Write an honest and intimate conversation with God.