The Desert is Better Than a Vexing Woman

The Desert is Better Than a Vexing Woman

I am literally out in the middle of nowhere, between Mojave and Mammoth. This is the high dessert near the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountain range. It is dry, hot, desolate, and mostly dirt. Nothing grows here except scrub brush and even that looks dead. The dirt is sand and doesn’t even boast rocks. The black crows fly by just waiting for something – perhaps something dead or something shiny and dead, like me with my laptop. If I wasn’t sitting on this side of the hotel room window with my laptop and my grande Starbucks coffee, I am sure I would die. I think about Moses wondering in a place just like this for FORTY YEARS. There is not a tree in site, no green blades of grass, not even a rock to crawl under, and no body of water near by. I would have a really hard time not grumbling and complaining if I were stuck here for more than my two day sentence. I am struggling to find anything beautiful here and yet Proverbs 21:19 shouts loud and clear, “It is better to live in a dessert land than with a contentious and vexing woman.” O.K. that means that this ugly, dry, foreboding land is better than living with me if I am vexing and contentious. Ouch!

This is how the dictionary defines Vexing: 1. to irritate; annoy; provoke. 2. to torment; trouble; distress; plague; worry. 3. to discuss or debate (a subject, question, etc.) with vigor or at great length. 4. to disturb by motion; stir up; toss about. 5.to afflict with physical pain. And if that were not enough here is how the dictionary defines Contentious: 1. tending to argument or strife; quarrelsome. 2. causing, involving, or characterized by argument or controversy.

So, the question is; would it be better for my husband to live out here in the middle of nowhere than with me? If I am contentious and vexing than the bible says this dry, desolate, dead land is BETTER than me. So, next time you’re tempted to discuss or debate, argue or cause him to worry, step to the edge of the desert and hold your tongue. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of anyone having to live in this desert wasteland, especially the man that I love.