When You Feel You Are in a Spiritual DesertSample

When You Feel You're in the Desert

After every desert comes the "promised land" and a commission, a commission so great that we wish we could have stayed in the wilderness instead. God told Moses, "Bring my people out of Egypt; take them to the promised land." Here, Moses sits in the wilderness, stripped of everything. But God knew: Before the promised land, there was Pharaoh, and that meant war against the Egyptians, the responsibility to lead more than two million people through the desert, and the danger of hostile peoples. It was for these wars and responsibilities that God prepared Moses in the wilderness. In a war, we must be able to hear the Commander's voice and execute his commands promptly, regardless of what we can see or feel with our limited human abilities and, irrespective of the circumstances.

But, and this is extremely important, the instruction can sometimes be something small that we must go and do - like planting a mustard seed. The desert sometimes leaves us with just enough faith to move forward — sometimes the size of a mustard seed. But it's big enough! This is how one plants large trees: with mustard seeds. Do not despise what God puts in your hand. There is much spiritual greed among many of us: We want to do great things for the Lord! Do not despise the day of small things and small beginnings. It's not for you to determine how big or small the job he gives you has to be.

We need desert experiences to discipline us about our unbelief. For forty years, God disciplined Israel in the wilderness, teaching them to believe him, listen to his voice, and obey him. Israel had to learn to trust in God and God alone.

It is especially failure that often lands us "very suddenly" into a spiritual desert. Deep despair overcomes us. The horror of, "How is it possible that this could have happened? How is it possible that I failed?"

In the wilderness, God tests our heart's deepest motives: Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments. He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothing did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. So know in your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you (Deuteronomium 8:2-5).