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“The divine covenant partner commits himself to be present with, to preserve, and to protect his pilgrim-saint until he returns safely to the Promised Land. … The pilgrim obligates himself to come to God’s house and worship him with tithe in hand. These commitments commence the plot of [Jacob’s sojournings]. Jacob sets out to find a wife, but first God finds him.”
—Bruce Waltke
“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
—Matthew 28:20b
“‘Wilderness’ is a place, in biblical rhetoric, where there are no viable life support systems. ‘Grace’ is the occupying generosity of God that redefines the place.”
—Walter Brueggemann, Journey to the Common Good
Wilderness (noun)
1a - (1): a tract or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings
(2): an area essentially undisturbed by human activity together with its naturally developed life community
b: an empty or pathless area or region: “in remote wildernesses of space groups of nebulae are found” — G. W. Gray 1960
c: a part of a garden devoted to wild growth
2 obsolete: wild or uncultivated state
— Merriam-Webster Dictionary
“Those convinced of the fact of divine reconciliation should thereby be convinced that intellectual conviction is not attained in a sort of spiritual vacuum. One must have bared one’s soul, even reckoned oneself as some kind of sinner... talk of such realities as sin and forgiveness may fail to commend itself to us because it cannot
discover in us a disposition to receive it.” — Stephen Williams
“The existential predicament in which one fears condemnation is quite different from the one where one fears, above all, meaninglessness.” — Charles Taylor