Sometimes I wonder how God puts up with me. Love is the only possible explanation because if I were Him dealing with me, I would have given up hope and cut my losses a long time ago. Goodness I’m grateful He doesn’t do that. His patience with me is grace at its finest, and His choreography work in the dance of my life is shockingly good.
There are times when we suffer, and because Romans 5:3-4 says so, when we learn to persevere, we grow in character and hope. I believe when we begin to grow and produce, because John 15:2 says so, that God prunes branches that bear fruit so they will bear more. Of course, there are times when we’re in a spiritual battle with the enemy and are under attack. We also live in a fallen world where people have free will.
Each of those are challenging and can leave you feeling that you’re not going to survive. I don’t know why God chooses to work the way He does, but I have found that those times typically drive me closer to Him. That is the real point I guess – to get us closer to Him.
It took me a solid two months to begin to figure it out, but I’ve spent this summer in the spiritual wilderness. I wouldn’t last two days, much less two months in the real wilderness. It took some wise counsel from a pastor friend to help me truly identify it.
You’ll have to take my word for it, but I want nothing more than to grow closer to God. I’ve been praying that God would show me what’s getting in my way. What sins are tripping me up and keeping from getting where I need to be.
In Matthew 7:7-8 (NKJV) Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”
Friends, He’s been answering me on this topic, and I’ve been too dense to understand it. That is until a few days ago when it finally began to lock into place. If you listen closely, you might hear God sighing “finally.” How many times have I missed answers because I couldn’t get out of my own way? That’s a thousand words for another day.
Allow me to get vulnerable for a minute. I have had a couple things on my mind that I really felt like I needed to talk over with a friend. I’m not having an existential crisis. I’ve just had regular old life issues that I’ve felt needed a sit-down with one of my people. You know that kind of good therapeutic, recharging, I’m not alone, and I’m going make it sort of conversation with a close friend? I mean one of your inner circle people that knows the real you and will just let you ramble on until you get it out of your system.
Each one of them has been unavailable for very valid reasons that I support. I kept struggling with this because I knew if I deeply needed them, they would be right there. Everything and anything that could get in the way, did. In hindsight, it had nothing to do with any of them.
I kept struggling with it wondering why it was bothering me so much, when I didn’t really have a big issue at stake. Ahem, wilderness. Spending time in Scripture began to shift my thinking. I was a little off in my seeking. Relationships of any kind – friends, spouses, children, mentors, etc., – are never going to fix a hole only God can fill. I know that but I wasn’t practicing it. I should’ve been relishing time with the Lord.
I spent some deep time in prayer about it – that God would help me see what I was missing. When I have that kind of prayer time, I keep a journal with me so I can write down anything I feel like He’s telling me. He prompted me to look at a previous journal entry where I had been reading in John about the woman at the well. He pointed me to John 4:34, “Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.’”
What was sustaining to Jesus was doing and completing the tasks God gave him. Oh, sweet friends, now I was getting somewhere. The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan and what sustained Him was God and God’s Word.
He began to reveal to me just how much I had been focusing on everything else. I had made everything about me. Ugh. Idolatry really. I’ve been no better than Israelites roaming in the desert for 40 years. I used to wonder how God could lead them out of slavery in Egypt, part the sea so they could escape pharaoh’s army, serve them up daily manna and provide water out of rocks and yet they still couldn’t figure it out. They still didn’t trust Him to provide and sustain.
It makes more sense to me today, because unfortunately I haven’t done it either. He led me out of a time of suffering and while I’ve given Him all the credit for it, that’s not enough. I must trust Him on the rest of the journey. He is the sustenance. In Deuteronomy 8 the Lord says He took the Israelites into the wilderness to humble them, to test them, and to know what was in their hearts. In verse three, He says He humbled them and fed them manna so that they learn that “man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”
We can expect the same in our lives. Even good things and good people can get in the way of our relationship with God when we first focus on self. When church is more important than Jesus; when we look to our people before we look to our God; when we try to feed ourselves with the feelings of achievement and success; we’re going to stay lost and wandering. We might be forced to endure more than we expected, but we’re being prepared for the life God has created us to live.
Allow me to offer one final thought whether you’re in the wilderness or not, praise God, your true sustainer, wherever you are in your journey and whatever your situation. I’ll leave you to ponder the words of David in Psalm 63:3-5 (NKJV), “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.”
Photo credit: Joseph Young on Unsplash
