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Prologue
Dear reader, are you seeking answers to the mystery of life? Do you sometimes feel stuck in a daily routine or alone in a spiritual desert without the hope of finding the exit door? Are you at the end of your rope? If so, I invite you to join me in a quest for answers to the difficult passages and arid places in life.
Sighing and the divine response
The Scream by Edvard Münch
"The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. I open my mouth and pant, (or sigh)longing for your commands. Turn to me and have mercy on me, as you always do to those who love your name. Direct my footsteps according to your word."Psalm 119:130-133.
The LORD said to him, "Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst." Daniel 9:4.
Sighing is not the only prerogative of lovers languishing and waiting for the beloved or the facial expression of discouragement of a student facing homework that is beyond his intellectual capability. It is in fact as inherent to man as laughter is.
In my generation, Nihilism, the Absurd of Eugene Ionesco’s theater, artistic expressions such as the painting “The Scream” by Edvard Münch, the literature and the life style of intellectuals such as Camus and Sartre were faithful mirrors reflecting the alienation, the despair and the perplexity, all, experiences of our modern life. They had no valid and satisfying solution to offer for the complexity of increasingly insurmountable problems. The influence of their promising modern ideologies and philosophies have only produced a bitter fruit poisoning the existence of a humanity close to her last sigh.
However, there is another sigh that comes out of the depth of the human being.
In Ecclesiastes 3:11, the wise King Solomon declares that: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity (the desire for or the thought, concept or essence, of eternity) in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end”.
It is the act of sighing or panting that best expresses this absolutely essential need of a human being suffering from separation in the search for his creator who alone can satisfy his deepest need. ( As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you)
The Lord God is the Father (Creator) of the spirits of all mankind Acts 17:25) and he wants to guide us by his Word, by the sound of his voice on our way back to our eternal home. In Numbers 27:15, 18, Moses said to the LORD, “May the LORD, the God who gives breath to all living things, appoint someone over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the LORD’s people will not be like sheep without a shepherd”. So the LORD said to Moses, "Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay our hand on him;
Before one can go out, before knowing freedom, one has to find the door to go in that leads to liberty, to eternal life, to our destination. Who is this man, this guide? What is this door, where can it be found? So many questions, so many sighs!
What about you my reader, my friend, are you asking yourself these same questions? Do you know these deep sighs that will only be fully satisfied with a response that would fill the deepest part of your soul? God knows your thoughts even before they are formed in your brain. In fact, it is he who is seeking you. He is just waiting for you to sigh, he understands the burdens that we all bear.
Jesus invites you:” Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28.
Hope to see you again.
Written and published by Jean Louis Mondon. July 2011. Revised 2026.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE. © [2026] [Jean Louis Mondon] All Rights Reserved
Author´s Note
September. 1st. 2017 UPDATE: Now you can listen to the complete recording of "The Joshua Tree" ebook thanks to an excellent and true work of love, cooperation of my good friend w. c. whitaker who graciously lent his vocal talent and skill as a reader and sound man.
I want first and foremost to thank my Heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus for the Holy Spirit´s inspiration for the birth of a seed planted in my heart in 1988 as I was pondering at the way His providential hand had guided me all my life. That seed, birthed in a simple thought of a lost man walking in a desert grew throughout subsequent years of further learning experiences and the inspiration from the Word of God into this spiritual journey that I am finally able to share with you.
I also want to express my gratitude to all the "Joshua Trees", examples and models who helped shape my life by letting the Truth, the light and the life-giving Lord Jesus grow and manifest the fruits of love, abiding in Him and serving others faithfully in words and deeds where ever He planted them. If you are listening to this or reading the parable, you know who you are.
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