From Altars in the Wilderness to the Garden

I'm Wes. In my mind, nothing beats a good story. Tell me a tale of love, loss, redemption, belonging – I'll eat it up faster than one of my famous homemade cheesecakes. I'm here to find a safe space to navigate my way through the grander story of being redeemed by Jesus. The catch is, I love men. Like, a lot. And I'm trying to learn how to love them better – the way that He would. Wanna jump into the story with me for a bit, brothers? The dozen antique clocks in my apartment say we have plenty of time.

I stared down at the worn, yellowed pages of the Bible that I’ve read and studied since I was probably ten. My phone displayed a draft of an original hymn I’m writing – “Ebenezer,” I plan to call it. It’s pretty unique in that it’s going to tell the original story of why Israel erected that famous “rock of help” that we sing of in “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”

Ooh, perfect! I discovered an appropriate verse from Psalm 78 that I can easily convert to the hymn’s established 8.7.8.7 meter. I wrote, I read, I prayed, I wrote some more – all to quiet my mind and prepare for this new prayer labyrinth exercise at this year’s YOB retreat.

To be perfectly honest, I really did not see the value of staring at my own two feet as I wandered through this silly maze. We were being sent through the labyrinth in three groups, and I was actually grateful to be placed in the final group. I could observe my brothers in the labyrinth from afar, and maybe I’d see some confused, distorted facial expressions to reaffirm my skepticism.

When my time arrives to enter the prayer labyrinth, I read the prompts placed at the entrance:

What do you need to let go of? What are you repeating with each step?

Listen for God. What is He saying as you walk?

Good grief. Even before I can take my first step inside, my mind swims in a thick sea of the most recent traumas to plague me: my failure to steward well the financial blessings of the past few years; my failure to make a successful career as a high school teacher; my doubt about being the kind of leader that my other brothers need, including stepping down early from my community leadership term; and even worse, the failed attempts to habitually leave these burdens at the throne of the Father.

Yet I clearly hear the Father’s calming voice through the Spirit as I walk: “Yet I was with you in that wilderness. Shall I not be with you now?”

So, I slowly trudge the deserted path while keeping my eyes firmly planted on the ground before me. Do you know how hard it is to see God in a sea of gravel and stones? Maybe a pathetic tuft of weeds here and there, but otherwise a barren path.

I realize that this labyrinth is a metaphor for how I tend to view my life back home: stuck in a place all alone that was never meant for me. A place designed by the other broken humans around me to leech off me until nothing remains.

But I can’t judge. I’m just as bad of a gardener as the other broken men in this desert around me. This is the kind of land we’ve cultivated for ourselves – a far cry from how the Master Gardener designed it.

We see the beautiful flowers and plants that point back to His beauty, and instead of nourishing them, watering them, venerating them, letting them breathe and pollinate and benefit the rest of the garden … we pluck them. Remove them from their roots. Take them out of the sunlight and into the dark corners of our homes. Deeply inhale their intoxicating scent, deriving the deepest pleasure from them over and over until they are a withered, brown husk of their former selves.

And the only response I have to this tragedy is this:

Christ, have mercy on us.

After several minutes of walking, I finally reach the grassy center of the labyrinth and recognize it immediately: home. It’s lush, green, and filled with other people I love. It’s what God designed and purposed all along, and I can rest. I can finally enjoy a place cultivated just for me. A place untainted by the stain of failure and sin.

That peace lasts maybe thirty seconds before I hear in the Spirit, “Okay, Wes, you’ve had a glimpse of the peace and rest always meant for you. But I need you to leave now.”

And I weep on the spot.

“God … I can’t. I wasn’t meant to be out there. I just want to be in here with You and my other brothers.”

“But I still have work for you to do – out in the wilderness. Work for the kingdom that I have reserved specifically for you. I need your help to restore this garden. And I will still be with you.”

All of these words come to me even before reading the prompts for my journey back out of the labyrinth! That sign reads:

Where is God leading you out into this world, including the rest of this retreat?

Thank God for walking with you. Thank God for other brothers also walking with you.

And so, I gather whatever strength I have and exit the center of the labyrinth, winding my way out of Paradise, back the same way I came. This time, though, the wilderness feels different. My eyes are not fixed on the dry, empty ground, instead noticing the faces of every other brother I pass.

I make a point to look each of my other brothers in the eyes, even if they do not reciprocate. I am not alone, even though each brother is on his own leg of the journey, each with his own fears, uncertainties, and difficult conversations with God.

Each brother trying to step onward and grow a garden from this ground.

I indeed thank God for His presence, and for my brothers’ presence in this wilderness. I look back at all the altars left in my path, whether I remember building them or not. Moments where I saw God show up for me when I’d assumed He had finally left me to my own devices. The words of my anointed brother Phil Wickham flood in:

Remember that fear that took our breath away?

Faith so weak that we could barely pray.

But He heard every word, every whisper.

Now those altars in the wilderness

Tell the story of His faithfulness.

Never once did He fail, and He never will.

Here, by Your help, I’ve come, God. I can’t wait to continue writing “Ebenezer.”

I reach the exit of this prayer labyrinth, thankful for the time spent quietly with Him. The remainder of this YOB retreat was spent basking in the inner peace that this exercise afforded, making sure that before I ever beheld beauty from the other flowers in the garden, I was feeding and pouring into them.

It was no longer about me, the fallible man given the simple task to “tend My garden” and utterly failing; it was about my Master, the one who makes our graves into gardens.

So now I press onward with my brothers, leaning once again into my original identity as a gardener of the King. Since the moment I joined this ministry of YOB five years ago, I’ve firmly believed we are truly making something beautiful out of the dust.

As we venture onward into new nonprofit territory, I hope our leaders come to see what beautiful gardeners God has made out of them this far, that Jesus goes before them, and that He is leading us all home.

Walk on, traveler. Walk on.

Where have you felt the tension to rest and remain in the grassy center of a labyrinth, and also to step out into the wilderness to do God’s work? Where have you seen God turn graves or barrenness into gardens?