Each and every way God met the Israelites in the desert was for the purpose of showing them that they were secure in His care. That they need only to surrender their self-sufficiency and believe God to be who He claimed to be. To trust that He would do what He said He would do and, in response, obey Him because they trusted Him more than they believed in their own ways.
It's easy for me to question the Israelites' ability to trust God, to follow His commands, and to stop complaining in light of all He'd already done. And then I look at my own life and how I respond to my desert wanderings. Oof.
Forgetful of God's faithfulness and quick to assess my situation and to believe unequivocally that I will not survive. That's often the way I roll.
Tell me I'm not alone.
In my defense (and in solidarity with the Israelites), it's hard to stop measuring outcomes by the resources you possess when you've spent much of your life believing your striving will get you where you want to go. It doesn't.
- So the desert teaches you what you might not quickly learn otherwise.
God allows us to feel barren desperation in the desert so that we might run to the oasis of His provision. We want His provision and the relief His blessings will bring, but we don't want the wilderness that teaches us about our great need for Him.
We want to trust, but we don't want the doubts that lead us there.
We want to see God provide, but we don't want the insufficiencies that reveal His faithfulness.
We want greater faith, but we don't want the unknowns that pave the way.
We want deliverance without the desert.
But God deliberately designs deserts to draw us to Himself. It's only natural that we'd want out of the desert as quickly as possible. That job that isn't life-giving, the dearth of meaningful friendships, the spiritually dry season, the wasteland of shattered dreams and unmet expectations. Get me out of here!
It can feel like the desert itself is the source of the pain, but, in reality, the desert often serves to reveal a heart issue: what we think we can't be happy without. In other words, sometimes the desert reveals the comforts, idols, and treasures we lean on for sustenance.
I'm writing this book a few years after the global COVID- 19 pandemic, and I think it's safe to say that, at its height, the pandemic felt like a wilderness full of loss, chaos, confusion, and isolation. For many, it was a wilderness that revealed what we live for, depend on, and can't be happy without.
If you found happiness in friendships and staying busy with social engagements, this unexpected desert threatened that happiness.
If you looked to your achievements and work for fulfillment, this harsh desert ushered in feelings of purposelessness. If you needed approval from others to feel worthy, this was a desert that left you unsure and exposed.
Anxiety, fear, and hopelessness were natural responses, but the global pandemic also revealed the smaller idols we often look to in our comfort but can't find in the desert.
On the cusp of entering the promised land, Moses impressed this very lesson on the hearts of God's people:
And He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. — Deuteronomy 8:3
And Moses' warning to the people for when the "terrifying wilderness" (Deuteronomy 8:15) was no longer their reality should be ours as well:
Take care lest you forget the Lord your God... Beware lest you say in your heart, "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth." — vv. 11, 17
The lesson we learn from the deserts of our lives is that we truly don't live by bread alone. Or any other comfort, satisfaction, or earthly good. Our sustenance comes only from the Lord.
- The desert may be unwanted, but it is purposeful.
Hunger that leads to true satisfaction. Desperation that leads to dependence. Desert that leads to the promised land of God's deliverance. God meets us in the desert.
God isn't waiting to meet up with you in the not yet of the promised land; He wants you to find Him faithful today.
That's because God's desire for His people — for us who are His children now on account of faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus — is to be our God. And for us to be His people. This is at the heart of God's redemption story.
But what if He seems silent right now? What if the desert isn't temporary?
I hear you, friend. While so many of our not yets will be revealed in time, many of life's right nows will continue on for a lifetime. I won't pretend to know all that you might be going through and what unwanted right nows you are facing. And I can't promise any of us, including myself, that the best is yet to come, but perhaps this is the very heart of what I long to share with you on this journey:
We can press into all that is not yet or may never be in our circumstances when we meet the God who is transforming us right now. Because He has promised to one day change everything that is unsettled.
The hope we have in the desert is the assurance that God will never leave us, never forsake us, and never send us to a place He isn't going with us.
So what are some practical things we can do now when we're still in the desert?
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