As a product of Christian summer camps, I have a vast repertoire of camp songs stored away, ready to belt out at mostly inappropriate moments. An all-time favorite is the “Happy Wanderer,” which my cabinmates and I sang loudly and cheerfully as we hiked on the paths of a national forest in Michigan, clueless to what a mountain track was and what “Valderi, valdera” even meant.

I love to go a-wandering

Along the mountain track

And as I go, I love to sing

With my knapsack on my back

Val-deri, val-dera

Val-dera

Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha

Val-deri, val-dera

My knapsack on my back

My ardor for wandering has cooled these days, especially with my current wandering in the wilderness of nagging doubt about an unresolved issue. Perhaps I did something wrong; otherwise, why wouldn’t God just swoop down and deliver me from this wilderness. No, it’s because I didn’t pray enough. Clearly, it’s my lack of faith that keeps me wandering in this wilderness.

In Women’s Bible Study, we just finished studying Daniel 6, Daniel in the lions’ den. During the large-group teaching time, Jenn Miller outlined the contrasts in the chapter between the law of God and the law of man, between deliverers and between the outcomes of faithfulness.

When we got to the contrast between the outcomes of faithfulness, Jenn said that there are two groups of the faithful in Hebrews 11, the much-loved Hall of Faith chapter. She read Hebrews 11:32-33: “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions.”

“We love this outcome of faith where God intervenes and delivers,” said Jenn. You go, Jenn, end the teaching on a high note; but then she let us down gently. “This is not the only outcome of faith.”

Hebrews 11:36-38 describes in detail this second group who “suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”

Jenn pointed out that all those who were miraculously delivered—and those who were not—were commended for their faith (see Hebrews 11:39) whether in the wilderness or a lions’ den. And she added, “Jesus fits better into the second group of the faithful.”

I read those verses again and the words such as “suffered,” “mocking” and “flogging” stand out. The awful truth was that Jesus could have saved himself; the Father could have removed the cup of suffering; Jesus could have been delivered from death, but he didn’t and he wasn’t. Second Corinthians 5:21 says that it was “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

As Jenn reminded us on that Wednesday evening, the reward of the faithful is deliverance from sin to righteousness, to eternal life, to the city whose maker and designer is God.

Celebrated saints and nameless wanderers, may we all be counted among those of whom the world is not worthy, and among those who know they are unworthy apart from the Worthy Lamb who was slain.