This week I've been reading some of the prophecy about the coming Messiah (Jesus) in the Old Testament. Isaiah 40:3 is a familiar one, as Jesus quotes it in regards to John the Baptist. In my head, I'd heard it this way: "A voice of one calling in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way for the Lord!'" I pictured some guy in the wilderness calling out (namely, John the Baptist).
But in reading it this week, I saw something. The quotation marks are in a different place (at least in my translation... and I know that the original Hebrew doesn't have quotation marks, so where you put them can be disputed... however within the context, this next translation makes the most sense.) My Bible reads:
A voice of one calling: "In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God."
This is different. This isn't about someone who is in the wilderness calling out to others. This is about us being told: When we are in the wilderness (physically, spiritually, emotionally) then we are to prepare the way for the Lord, waiting for Him to come. The wilderness is intended to be a time of preparation.
It was true for the Israelites. It was true for John the Baptist. It's true for us.
What wilderness might you be in where God is asking you - in its midst - to actively prepare a way for Him?
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