O Lord God, You led Your ancient people through the wilderness and brought them to the promised land. Guide the people of your Church that following our Savior we may walk through the wilderness of this world toward the glory of the world to come; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
A number of years ago my brothers and I elected to go on a backpacking trip into the Cloud Peak wilderness in the Bighorn mountains to do a little fishing. There are a pair of lakes up there aptly named Lost Twin lakes which promised success even to a miserable angler such as I am. We strapped our fishing gear onto our backpacks, set out from a trail head, and headed uphill. It poured on us that first day. We could not get a fire lit. It was mighty miserable there for a while. But thanks to one brother who had been there before, we did not get totally lost.
That experience really brought home to me just how dependent I am on roads and the structures of life. In a wilderness area there are very few of those things, no roads, a path or two, but sometimes that disappears. There are miles and miles of empty places. One could get very lost.
We of course have our GPS enabled devices now. But that is no guarantee. A few years a young couple met with disaster in southern Oregon. They were following what their phone said was a road, a short-cut between the highway and the coast. It was just an old logging trail. Their car got stuck. The father perished while trying to hike out and get help.
We pass through another sort of wilderness in this life. Getting lost a genuine possibility with dire consequences. We pray that God leads us to a glory of a future which we have not seen yet. Along the way there are predators and worse who would waylay and even destroy us. Pray this prayer with fervor. You and I need our God’s help to make it to that other side safely. We did catch fish that day. It was good to be guided to the right place.