Submitted by Lara Cook
Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days into the wilderness and found no water. Exodus 15:22
The wilderness can be a beautiful place when you are prepared and headed there on purpose for an adventure. Some wildernesses have life – plants and animals and water. Some are barren and dry like a dessert. The wildernesses in life are usually dry, desolate, and lonely. Our time in the Wilderness can be devastating but it can also be transforming.
The Wilderness Can Cause HopelessnessEvery direction you look is the same and the path that leads you to freedom is completely buried in the sands of hopelessness. There is no water for a scorched and withered body and soul. No way out. No hope for survival because you cannot possibly go on.
Only God Can Bring Hope to the WildernessGod can provide hope in the wilderness, but it will probably not be in the direction you are looking. He provided manna for the Children of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness after their escape from Egypt. But it came from the sky, dropping like raindrops. He provided them with water too, but not from a beautiful clear stream. It came from a rock when He commanded Moses to strike the rock with his staff. I am sure no one expected that. The bible tells us in Isaiah For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. Isaiah 55:8 God’s ways are not our ways. He always knows the best way of doing everything, and often it is nothing like we have imagined. Do not let those examples of His sovereignty be wasted. Recognize that God is in control even in the wilderness, when it feels like He is not near. He is always with us, watching us, and bringing us hope if we are willing to see it.
Lessons from the Wilderness:
- TRUST HIM – you will never know trust until you have to trust Him in the wilderness! The Children of Israel did not trust, and they stayed in the wilderness a much longer time because of it. We may never feel more out of control of our lives than in the wilderness, where wild is the norm. Total reliance on Him is required for every step along the way.
- Rain is a Gift -Or Perspective is Everything. The healing rain of Jesus on your dried-out life will feel amazing. Rain can be a little thing you have taken for granted but in and after the wilderness, you will see rain differently, extra appreciative of it, as well as the tress, grass, mountaintops, and green pastures. The wilderness will change your perspective.
- It Refines You – Reveals your true identity. Time in the wilderness will wear you down. Stress, hopelessness, despair, it will all wear you down. But if you keep going, you will be left with your true identity. We tend to see who we really are and what we are really made of when we get worn down in the wilderness. We see what is really underneath and we emerge with a new identity.
The Children of Israel were in the wilderness a long time but on the other side of the wilderness – the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. The only way to the Promised Land is through the wilderness. Would we ever choose the wilderness? No. But God will meet us there, transform us there, and lead us through. He makes a way out of the wilderness when the path is gone.Scripture to Claim: Behold, I will do something new. Now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:19
