Moses spent four decades caring for sheep in the wilderness before God called him. Rejected by his own people and with blood on his hands, the former prince of Egypt humbly began again. Even after the magnificent exodus, he was consigned to four more decades in the same dusty wilderness, this time leading the stubborn flock of Israel.
David, the anointed king, spent years on the run before God gave him the kingdom. Homeless, rejected by his countrymen, he lived without permanence. The very king David had served with in battle, the one his music had soothed, was now trying to kill him. David and his men wandered, perhaps not always in literal wilderness but certainly in the barren loneliness of their exile.
Jesus, God’s only son, went into the desert for “only” forty days. He ate no food except the bread of life. He came face to face with the very advocate he had come to conquer. Confronted with very real temptations – and a very real, weak, human body – he endured the testing in the desert before he began his ministry.
We each of us have wilderness experiences that help prepare us for the work God has for us to do. Brave men and women before us have suffered and endured the hot sands, the scorching furnace of testing, the agony of suffering, the unanswered questions that weigh on the heart.
But the same Lord who was faithful to Moses, to David and to Christ is also faithful to us. It is in the wilderness that we learn the hard truth that we do not live by bread alone, that our hearts can be shattered and yet still take another breath. And it is in the wilderness that we learn to truly lean upon the Lord. He can take all the weight we throw on him.
And when we feel we cannot take one step more, he himself will stop to carry us, until we reach the promised land.
and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place. ~ Deuteronomy 1:31
Photo by Juli Kosolapova on Unsplash
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