Wilderness Wanderings

 I listen as the pastor speaks on the passage of Jesus' forty days spent in the wilderness, and it strikes me in the soul deep and I wonder if it's because I'm in a wilderness season of my own...

Time and again I've recently questioned my Lord why so much sorrow to bear around me when all I really want is to move on from my own? Why does it feel as though I'm on a ride I didn't sign up for but one I can't get off of?  

And I'm again reminded that I'm once more asking the wrong questions. I'm looking for the wrong thing. I'm seeking reprieve and comfort when what God's after in my life is courage. Perseverance is what I lack. Because I'm human. And I get worn thin. And that's the point where grace is all I can rely on. Because it's Christ in me, the hope of glory. 

When you forget that your wilderness places are the exact desolate spaces where the Almighty chooses to make Himself most known to you, when you forget that you are not blindly led to such emptiness without purpose and that goodness is directing every step, when all this gets lost in the desire for what is most convenient instead of what is most holy, that's when it all begins to seem like it's out of control. That's when desperation happens and the soul heaves. Lose sight of God, and you lose sight of everything meaningful. 

As the message continues, the pastor adds a side-note, and I suddenly hold the words that follow with great passion. He says that, for every temptation that the Enemy threw at the Savior in the desert, he didn't just strike at Christ's hunger or his weakness, but he struck at His identity. "If you are indeed the Son of God..." and just perhaps, this wilderness season is trying to cause me to question the same? 

If you are indeed a child of God...

And perhaps the longing in my soul isn't just for the natural needs to be met but for a heavenly reminder that I belong. That somehow all this madness will be redeemed, and I'll one day leave this behind forever. Maybe what can infuse me with the fortitude I need to endure isn't removal of the brokenness but a word of hope that Christ is mine in the midst of the brokenness and that nothing can take me from out of His loving hands. 

Be reminded of who you are, and you will be reminded of where you're eventually going. And being reminded of where you're eventually going gives you strength to keep carrying on today. And to lean into the grace alone that can sustain you. Knowing Whose you are is always the why behind where you're going because the journey isn't up to you in the first place. 

And then, the pastor draws attention to one more thing: all of the responses Jesus gives to these challenges to His identity and authority come from Deuteronomy - the words written to the Jewish nation in their own wilderness wanderings. Christ dealt with his own wilderness by harkening back to God's truth granted in previous wilderness struggle. And I'm suddenly comforted by the fact that my Savior felt all this too. And it strikes me that, for every scenario that I could come up with to say that God doesn't know how I feel, I can go back to Scripture and see that it's just not true. There isn't anything that I endure that He hasn't already. And that He's already walked through this wilderness and survived. And He's now telling me that I'll do the same if I trust Him. 

Do you make mass in your mess? Do you worship in your wilderness, dear soul? Do you do as the Psalm says and turn your valley of tears into a place of refreshment, a well-spring (Psalm 84:6)?

And I plead with God to make the praise rise again. To enable me to take one step of faith at a time. To keep going when I'm so tired of trudging into the unknown and stumbling through what seems like never-ending sorrow and all things broken. I ask God for continued rays of hope. Just keep reminding me that all this will be worth-it in the end. 

I look around me and yes, I do see wells of salvation springing up at the exact points of exhaustion when I need them. I do see streams in the desolate places reminding me that Love will have the final word. That, as long as God is on His throne, I'm carried by grace and hope. That I can look down and see the footprints of His right alongside me, telling me to keep going in the moments when I want to give in the most. 

But it all starts with choosing brave. It starts with realizing that this life isn't about my happiness but my holiness. And just perhaps, holiness can't come any other way than walking through the places where you least feel like God would show up and discovering that He has hidden miracles waiting for those who believe? 

And so, I take comfort in the fact that my God has walked this path before me. That I'm not alone in this season of uncertainty and testing. And I take hope that He's survived the temptings of the wilderness wanderings and kept the faith. That, through Him, I can and will do the same.