This devotional was for our online camp meeting. I found it when the Superintendent for the NM District of the Church of the Nazarene posted it on Facebook. Enjoy!

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In case you missed it, the following article was written for our Family Camp virtual Bugle last week.  I will post each day's devotional this week.

Day 1: Walk Like an Aramean

The very first camp meeting in America can be traced back to North Carolina in 1794 and it took place among the Methodists.  Apparently, this first one was quite accidental.  The dedication of a Methodist church became a revival that lasted for some weeks and outgrew the ability of the church to house it, so the people built a brush arbor to meet under and camped out in their wagons.  It was such a great experience that they decided to do it again the next summer.  Following that meeting in 1795, camp meetings sprung up across the frontier fueling the movement of God across our nation for over 200 years.

The camp meeting was billed as an opportunity to get “out into the wilderness” and to encounter God.  It has been responsible for the birth of whole denominations and movements.  Our own, Phineas Breese, gave his heart and life to Jesus at a camp meeting in Upstate New York.

Apparently, God likes meeting people in and leading people through the wilderness.  That fact can be traced all the way back through the scriptures.  When we do so, we see that some of the greatest lessons of faith have been learned in the wilderness.

Take Abram, for example.  When God invited Abraham to leave his home and family and to follow him to “the land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1), he promised Abram that his reward would be that he would become a “great nation” and be “blessed.”  But the path from ancient Haran, in south east Turkey, to Canaan (about 600 miles), was a path largely through uncharted wilderness.  If Abram was going to get from point A to B he would have to cross through that wilderness without the aid of Google Maps.  If he was not going to get lost on the way, he would have to learn to walk with the One who promised to be his Guide.

Abraham learned that lesson too.  When his great-great grandson Joseph referred to him, the one thing he knew about his ancestor was that he walked faithfully with God (Gen. 48:15).  James recalls that Abraham was known as God’s friend (James 2:23).  Moses referred to Abraham as a wandering Aramean (Deut. 26:5).  

The first lesson we need to learn when we head out into the wilderness is to “walk like an Aramean.”

During this season of wilderness that we are experiencing caused by the Coronavirus, a time when none of us are sure where we are going, I think the first lesson God would like to teach us is how to simply walk with Him.  To do so, we have to refuse to live in panic, make every effort to hear His voice, look to Him for direction, and rest in His care.  It’s a lesson it may take a lifetime to learn, but it’s never too late to start.  Abram was 75 when he heard the call of God.  Regardless of your age, let’s hear the wilderness invitation of God afresh and learn to walk with God each and every day.