Wilderness (noun): A wild, uninhabited and uncultivated region.
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| No life in sight?/ Accredited to: https://pixabay.com/en/desert-drought-dehydrated-clay-soil-279862/ |
The purpose of your wilderness season
The Israelites' wilderness season consisted of them wandering the desert regions for forty years, at God's command., They were a defiant and disobedient people, not realising that God's commands were to protect them and build them into a great nation - they were the fewest of all nations. They refused to walk in obedience with God so He allowed them to wander until the first generation of the Israelites had perished, allowing the children, Joshua and Caleb to enter the promised land.
Sometimes God places us in a season of wilderness - uncertainty, perhaps instability, not yet reaching where we want to reach - for specific reasons.
- Testing
- Learning lessons
- Revival of our faith
Deuteronomy 8:3 "He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD."
In this season He is:
- testing your obedience to Him. If you lose everything, will you still walk in His word? Or are you conditional?
- teaching you new things about Himself and you (Isaiah 43:19 "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?")
- teaching you to depend on Him and not yourself
- teaching you to not idolise the provision (bread) but to worship the provider (Him)
The wilderness does not mean that He has left you. He will never leave you nor forsake you.
Deuteronomy 8:4-5"Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you."
In this season He is:
- disciplining and shaping you, strengthening your spirit so you can resist your flesh
- teaching you to put His will above your own (you'll realise that your own will is self-centred and destructive)
- showing you how much He loves you
The wilderness season isn't punishment, it's to lead you to what God has for you.
Deuteronomy 8: 7 "For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land - a land with brooks, streams and deep springs gushing out into valleys and hills;"
- Today's generation often value speed over substance. We want to get rich or successful quick. It's all about speed. It's how we have been conditioned.
- God isn't concerned or bothered with time. He sees your value and in order for you to see it, He may have to place us in a situation where there is only Him to look at.
- God wants you to remember Him when you are successful - Deuteronomy 8: 17- 18 "You may say to yourself, 'My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me. But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth..."
Don't be distraught when you feel uncertain or spiritually dry. It's difficult in that season but God has not forsaken you. God is continuously shaping and showing His love for you.
Jeremiah 18: 4 "But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him."
- Courtney Carr xx
