It was the middle of the 2012 drought. The rain left in April and didn't return that year. By the middle of July our little dry-land farm was shriveled up and threatened to blow away in the relentless hundred degree wind. It was the year that God broke His steadfast silence and uttered wisdom to me.

I'm not the type that receives voiced revelations from God like some of my Pentecostal friends. Sure, I talk to God, but it's normally a one way conversation. He speaks daily to me though His written word, but I'm talking about communication that is even more direct than a text. I mean face-to-face, syllable-stressing English, complete with thought-provoking pauses.

During the peak of the drought I received a phone call from a fishing client. Craig had the urge to catch some panfish in the Sandhills and he knew that late July was was prime time for perch fishing. I jumped at his request; here was my chance to vacate the dried-up farm and spend a couple days in "God's Country."

I passed under the rare makings of a thunderhead on my way northwest into the hills. As I drove through the shade of the cloud I considered the chances of this cloud building up and moving southeast like they generally do. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get a nice rain while I'm gone," I thought to myself.

I spent the afternoon on a lake searching for perch and watching the thunderhead steadily build into a supercell thunderstorm. I said a few prayers that the storm would head toward our farm in eastern Custer county.

 By five o'clock the skies threatened to force me off the lake. The cloud was moving backwards! I quickly loaded the boat and drove west on the road that I was on, trying to outrun the rapidly approaching storm. At the end of the road I turned the truck around to face the onslaught.

In minutes the greenish-black cloud caught up with me, unloading a wall of water that obscured vision past the nose of the truck. There I sat, in a freak deluge in the middle of the worst drought in recorded history.

Rain pounded the windshield and the truck rocked in the wind but I expected the storm to pass quickly. The dry atmosphere couldn't hold much water--or so I thought.

Twenty minutes later the driving rain continued, converting the road into a river. I wondered if I would be able to drive back out. Then I started wondering about something else. Why is this happening here, where there's nothing but grass and cows, while we've been praying our hearts out for even a shower to keep our crops alive back home?  Then I realized that I was directing this question straight at God. I expected the usual reply of silence as the storm raged on.

Seconds later, a gentle and sure voice sounded in my ears. "I am simply watering my wildflowers. As for you, my grace is sufficient."

An awed trance gripped me and wouldn't let go as the rain finally let up and I plowed water toward a brilliant rainbow. My windshield wipers throbbed out a meditative rhythm during the eight mile drive to my campsite. That night the gentle patter of raindrops lulled me into the most tranquil sleep of my life.

Two months after this incident, those same words came back to mind when my wife's doctor said the word "cancer." A short time later they surfaced again as I pick-axed a grave into the sun-scorched ground to bury our family dog, Shilo. The words that God gave me that day in the wilderness have been my anchor throughout many a storm since, and will be into the future.

So if you're wondering if we can find God in the wilderness, then my answer to you is a definite "yes!" I've jotted down some other opinions on the matter by three men named David, Job, and Paul.