Wilderness Journeys

Wilderness Journeys

Every person experiences some kind of journey in their life. Some good, some bad, and some ugly, but one way or another, life takes us on an adventure. These adventures can include traveling to a new location, a new job, the birth of a child, a celebrated marriage, a new house, not to mention the joys of answered prayers for healing and salvation.  Each of these wondrous events brings with them an opportunity to celebrate. All journeys come with one denominator–change. Generally, we welcome these beautiful changes to our lives and usually end up loving these journeys. But if we live long enough, we will also experience at least one journey of hardship. These changes are very different from the ones listed above. These opposites may contain challenges like sickness, death of a loved one, loss of income, experiencing injustice, destructive addictions, divorces, or the loss of a home or location. We do not like these changes or times. These challenging times could be defined as “Wilderness Journeys.” I don’t know about you, but I have personally walked through each of these difficult experiences and have learned valuable lessons. But of all the lessons I have learned from these seasons, one truth stands out above all the rest. Are you ready for it?  

Walking through a desert will always reveal your vulnerability and your dependency to rely on God.

The word Wilderness in the Bible symbolizes an intense experience, like a lack of food or water, danger, encounters, and a need for a divine deliverance. That’s a lot to ponder.

Have you ever wondered, like I have, why God, when delivering His people from slavery, did not lead them straight into the Promised Land? 

Do you think, like I do, that maybe the mentality of these generational slaves of Egypt needed some character changes first?

Do you, like me, comprehend the fact that the rulers of Egypt were the ones who gave the Israelites their food and water as they served as slaves for those 430 years? Because of this, their dependency on Egypt may have been stronger than their dependence on God as a provider.

Are you convicted like so many of us at the revelation of how quickly man forgets God’s great acts and starts in with crying, murmuring, and complaining, allowing his narrow-minded flesh to speak so much louder than the voice of the Sovereign One? 

Do you agree with me that maybe God was actually protecting them with His divine timing because He knew they were not mature enough in their identity as His children to go to war with the giants in the Promised Land?

And lastly, do you now look at a wilderness experience a little differently than when we started this short piece?

You see, I did not enjoy my difficult and intense journeys. I definitely did not like the lack of substance that reverberated through my soul or the dangerous emotions of desperation. But I can tell you this, in a weird way, I needed every one of my desert experiences.                                                                                              

I needed to learn not to have a poverty mentality. I needed to stop thinking from an orphaned perspective. I needed to work on my vulnerabilities and my dependencies. I needed to develop my identity in Him before I slue the giants He had for me to take down. I needed to learn that God and God alone was my protector, my provider, my strength, and my deliverer. 

So together, let’s walk our roads to our Promise Land as we go tasting and rejoicing in the manna served to us from Heaven. Let us, like Jesus, be called to a desert wilderness in order to declare our triumph over our enemy. May we never despise our roads to Damascus; for on them, we find important points of change, new perspectives, and a stronger belief system to stand on Christ’s all-sufficient Cross.

Now, may your walk through your desert journey be with joy as you strengthen your relationship with God. Remember, it is a blessing to have vulnerability and dependency on Jesus; because He alone is your protector, provider, and deliverer.

Since we have been acquitted and made right through faith, we are able to experience true and lasting peace with God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King. Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God’s glory.  And that’s not all, we also celebrate in seasons of suffering because we know that when we suffer, we develop endurance,  which shapes our characters. When our characters are refined, we learn what it means to hope and anticipate God’s goodness. And hope will never fail to satisfy our deepest need because the Holy Spirit that was given to us has flooded our hearts with God’s love. When the time was right, the Anointed One died for all of us who were far from God, powerless, and weak.

                                                                                         Romans 5:1-6 Voice Translation 

Blessings,

Melissa Norris

Sanctioned Love