Get Me Out of the Wilderness!

Scripture: Genesis 16:1-14

Do you know where your name came from? Were you named for a family member, a friend of your parent(s), a famous person, or a person from the Bible? 

Names have great power. Throughout the Bible, we see many names for God. The Good Shepherd. Father. King of Kings. Lord of Lords. 

But, do you know where the first name for God came from? 

The first person to name God wasn’t a patriarch, judge, king, prophet, apostle, or anyone of high stature. The first person to give God a name in the Bible was a servant of Abraham and Sarah – an Egyptian woman named Hagar. 

In Genesis 16, Hagar has a child with Abraham, thinking she has his wife Sarah’s blessing. But, her son drives a wedge in this family and Hagar runs away with him into the desert and takes refuge near a spring. 

In the wilderness – the place she never wanted to be – she runs into the last person she expected to find. God spoke to her in a way that let her know that she had not been abandoned. He promised to be with and to bless her offspring. He told her what kind of man this child would grow up to be. 

Hagar’s response was the first of its kind in the Bible. “She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’” 

When you’re in the wilderness, God sees you. In fact, we may find God closer to us in the wilderness than during our previous experiences of ease and abundance. 

Several years ago, I found myself in the wilderness. I experienced night after night of panic attacks. Unable to sleep for hours on end, it felt like a wilderness. I was being tested – a test I didn’t want or ask for! 

My wilderness with anxiety left me feeling out of control and wobbly. I was uncertain where this anxiety had come from and when it would ever leave. I didn’t know who I could share it with, and prayer felt more difficult than normal. “God, make this stop,” was my most common prayer. 

Like us, Hagar ended up in the wilderness asking some big questions. 

Does God see? 

Does God care? 

Can God do anything about my situation? 

Her wilderness experience led to a profound encounter with God, which answered her questions. 

She named God “El Roi,” which means “The God Who Sees (Me).” 

She names her son Ishmael, which means “God hears.” 

She leaves the wilderness filled with hope. God has promised to bless her children. 

If you’re in the wilderness today, I invite you to consider how God used the wilderness in the life of Hagar, along with countless other people in Scripture. I encourage you to press into God and pour your heart out to Him. 

Leave space for God in the wilderness. Like Hagar, what if the place you never wanted to be became the place where you found your greatest prayers answered and your deepest needs met? 

I believe God is going to use the wilderness in your life like He did Hagar’s. But, that may involve you shifting your expectations of God. 

We’ll dive into that subject in Day 2!

Scriptures: Hosea 2:14, Romans 8:1, Revelation 12:12

When you hear the word “wilderness,” what comes to your mind immediately? 

Hard. 

Scary. 

Beautiful. 

Overwhelming. 

Disorienting. 

Most of those words are negative. They indicate that the wilderness is difficult and outside our comfort zone. That view is not new. It was reflected as long ago as the era of the Old Testament prophets. 

In the book of Hosea, the prophet was called by God to pursue and marry a woman named Gomer who would cheat on him multiple times. Hosea’s marriage to Gomer would have been a living testimony of what God would do with His people. 

Early in chapter 2, we see the image of wilderness as a consequence of their sins of idol worship and unfaithfulness to God. Those verses are intense and hard to read. They reflect the jealousy of God and how seriously He took the people breaking His covenant with Israel. 

However, in the middle of chapter 2, we see a tone shift. In verse 14, Hosea relays a surprising promise from God. “But then I will win her back once again. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there.” 

If you’re in the wilderness, you may expect God’s voice in this season to be harsh and condemning. You’ve recognized the sinful path you were on and the consequences of your human relationships and your relationship with God. 

But what if God wants to speak to you tenderly in the wilderness? What if God has led you into the desert, into the wilderness, in order to heal you, not to wound you? To convict you, not condemn you? To encourage you, not to shame you? 

I often expect God’s voice to sound like my inner critic – harsh, judgmental, and shaming. I anticipate God rehearsing all of my worst moments and sending me into despair about the future. But, God’s voice is not like the voice of our enemy, Satan. They are so very different! 

I once read a book where the author posed a fascinating thought experiment. He asked his readers to imagine that Jesus appeared at your dining room table tonight. Sitting there across from you, He has total knowledge of your whole life story, including all the secrets you pray are never known publicly. He knows how mixed your motives are. 

The author then prompted his readers to finish a sentence, “If Jesus sat across from you with all of that knowledge, you would feel ____________________.” 

How did you expect that sentence to end? 

The first time I read it, I filled it in with DISAPPOINTMENT. 

Friends that I’ve shared this thought experiment with have added their own words. 

“Displeasure” 

“Wrath” 

“Sadness” 

“Frustration” 

“Let down” 

But that’s not how the quote ends. 

The author then came back and reviewed the prompt again and filled the blank in himself: “You would feel his acceptance and forgiveness.” 

That is really good news!! That quote is rooted in the truth of Romans 7-8. Paul cannot escape his sin and the misery it brings with it. He wonders who will free him from this bondage and the answer he proclaims is Jesus. Not long after, he writes, “So there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” If you’re hearing the voice of condemnation in the wilderness, you’re not hearing from God. You are hearing your enemy. 

I pray you find this wilderness experience to be the place where you discover God’s voice. A voice that is not like your sin and shame, nothing like our enemy, the accuser of the brethren (Revelation 12:12). Instead, I pray you hear a voice that allows you to take a deep breath, drop your shoulders, and surrender yourself into the acceptance, forgiveness, and rest that Jesus Christ came to give you. 

May you allow God to speak to you tenderly in the wilderness so that He can heal the deepest parts of you. 

In Day 3, we’re going to look at how to pay special attention to our needs while we’re in the wilderness. What’s next may be exactly the permission slip you need to make it through this season! See you soon.

Scripture: 1 Kings 19:1-9

17 minutes. 

That’s the amount of time I have between when my wife tells me she is really hungry and when she becomes like a character from one of the Snickers “Hungry?” commercials. 

If 17 minutes pass, then she’s no longer hungry – she’s now HANGRY (a mix of hunger and anger the world would be better off avoiding). She doesn’t feel good when she’s hangry and the rest of us around her don’t either. 

I’m making light of our hunger here, but it’s a basic physical reality that when we don’t eat, we don’t flourish. 

Yet, one of the realities we have to face in the wilderness is our hunger. The adversity of the wilderness often keeps us from fulfilling our needs because we’re simply trying to survive!. 

The prophet Elijah experienced this in 1 Kings 18-19. The difference between Elijah’s experiences in chapters 18 and 19 offers arguably the most dramatic contrast of experiences one person has from one chapter to the next in the entire Bible. 

In 1 Kings 18, Elijah duels with 400 false prophets, calling down fire from heaven. Those gathered witnessed God’s power on spectacular display. Later in that same chapter, Elijah prays for rain at the end of a God-directed drought and the literal floodgates open. 

Yet, by midway through 1 Kings 19, Elijah has been on the run for many miles, fleeing the wrath of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. 

In 1 Kings 19, we read the description of Elijah alone in the wilderness, asking God to allow him to die. 

The first time I really read what happened next as an adult, I laughed and then was speechless. What God did next for Elijah was so simple, yet profound – something powerful I often overlook. 

Elijah falls asleep. After a period of time passes, an angel wakes him up and tells him to eat. Food and water have miraculously appeared. Then, Elijah falls asleep again and when the angel next wakes him up, there is more food to eat. 

While Elijah does begin a long journey after that (including a profound encounter with God on Mt. Sinai – the same place where Moses received the 10 Commandments), I think we could all learn something from how God meets Elijah in the wilderness initially. 

First, Elijah vents his unfiltered frustration to God. This is the second most famous spiritual figure in the Old Testament (behind Moses) and he’s asking God to end his life. If you’ve even been so exhausted or overwhelmed that you prayed such a prayer, know that God sees you and is not done working in your life! 

Second, Elijah takes a nap. Two actually! Sometimes, our next step of obedience isn’t prayer, Bible reading, tithing, or doing a service project. What if what God wants you to do is rest? Jesus napped in the middle of a storm. Elijah napped while a whole army was trying to find and kill him. If they can nap, you can too. 

Third, Elijah ate good food. Too many of us think we are too busy to eat. If we do stop long enough to eat, we eat quickly and food of poor quality, which our body doesn’t receive well. To survive in the wilderness, we must fuel our bodies with good food. When we don’t, we become hangry like my wife and we are ill-equipped for what God has for us next. 

I know this may sound simple – be honest with God, nap, and eat. But, it’s often the simple, fundamental things which get discarded when we get overwhelmed in the wilderness. 

If you’re going to make it through the wilderness, you have to do the basics well and trust God with the rest. Taking care of yourself is a job you cannot delegate to anyone else. If you don’t steward yourself well, you will be unable to steward anything God puts in your hands. 

Perhaps your next step in the wilderness is to close your device and lay down for a nap. Your current situation might look a lot different when you wake up. 

In Day 4, we’re going to look at maybe the most important question you’ll face in the wilderness. How you answer this question is going to make all the difference!

Scriptures: Luke 1:80, Luke 3:2-3, Matthew 3:1-6, Luke 7:24-28

When you end up in the wilderness, what’s your natural response? 

For many of us, we resist it. We cry out to God, “make it stop!” When it doesn’t stop, we even face the temptation to become bitter at God and resent the wilderness. 

I stumbled into my own wilderness several years ago. In the middle of a big move, I began having panic attacks. These lasted for several weeks. Eventually, though, they began to subside. 

However, they weren’t just a temporary experience tied to a life transition. They’ve returned on several occasions in the years since. Whenever they come back, I tend to start by crying out to God for relief. I don’t want to be in the wilderness of anxiety and panic – anywhere but here! 

Because this has been my default attitude, I found John the Baptist’s response to his wilderness to be shocking and uncomfortable. In Luke 1:80, I read, “John grew up and became strong in spirit. And he lived in the wilderness until he began his public ministry to Israel.” John apparently spent a long time in the wilderness. 

Matthew 3 tells us that John went so far in embracing the wilderness that it transformed his clothes and diet. “John’s clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food he ate locusts and wild honey.” It was there in the wilderness that John heard the message from the Lord which he began preaching until Jesus came to him and requested to be baptized. 

The wilderness not only prepared John for his purpose; it also transformed John into the person who could step into that purpose. When asked about his own identity, Jesus began by talking about John’s character. “What kind of man did you go into the wilderness to see? Was he a weak reed, swayed by every breath of wind?” 

The lesson we learn from John’s experience can be summed up by the motto of The Wilderness Collective. “The wilderness makes you better.” 

The wilderness can transform us into a better version of ourselves – stronger, more resilient, less vulnerable to compromise, and flexible enough to flourish in adverse circumstances. 

Yet we only get better in the wilderness when we resist the temptation to bitterness and resentment. Wilderness makes us better when we stop praying “make it stop” and we start praying “make me who I need to become.” Now, that’s a scary prayer! 

You may never be ready to eat locusts, nor wear camel hair. But, what if your story was one day told like John’s? “A message came to me when I was living in the wilderness.” Or “I remained in the wilderness until I began the ministry God had for me.” 

What if the wilderness made you a better follower of Jesus? A better friend? A better spouse or parent? A better listener? A better worker? 

As amazing as John’s emergence from the wilderness, and as great as his preaching was in preparing the way for the Messiah, Jesus seems to think you and I are capable of more. 

“I tell you, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John. Yet even the least person in the Kingdom of God is greater than he is!” 

Those words have always sobered me. They remind me of the transformation Jesus can do in me and the potential He sees in me. The same is true for you! 

The truth is, the wilderness doesn’t make some people better. Wilderness actually makes them bitter – they kick against it and resist the gifts it offers them. They miss out on what God might do only there. Who knows who they might have become and what they might have accomplished? 

The wilderness makes other people better – they stop kicking and surrender to God in its confines. They discover an intimacy with God and a transformation within themselves, which resets the trajectory of their lives. 

The wilderness is going to change us. So, will we leave bitter? Or will we leave better?

**I’m so grateful that I’ve gone on this journey with you. Tomorrow, as we wrap up our final day, we’ll step back and consider how what happens in our wilderness might impact others. Who knows – maybe what God is doing here is much bigger than we’ve imagined?

Scriptures: Exodus 2:11-22, Exodus 3:1-6

Have you ever woken up one day and asked yourself “how on earth did I get here?” 

In several talks I’ve given with people of all ages, I’ve asked a similar question. “How many of you are where you thought you’d be at your current age?” Very few hands go up. Most people are living in places and working at jobs they didn’t see when they imagined their future. 

You may even feel this way about your current situation of crisis and adversity. “How on earth did I end up in the wilderness?!” If you didn’t see a crazy turn into disorientation and disappointment coming, you are not alone. 

Moses knows those feelings. The famous figure in the Old Testament unexpectedly ended up in the wilderness too. After he killed an Egyptian in a fit of rage (for beating a fellow Israelite no less), Moses fled Egypt and ran into the wilderness of Midian. 

At 40 years old, Moses had his whole life ahead of him. But, alone in the desert, far from both his own people and the people who raised him, I’m sure Moses felt like he’d ruined everything. 

However, Moses wasn’t so caught up in his own inner turmoil that he missed an opportunity to do the right thing. He rescued seven young women from some shepherds who kept them from accessing a well for their animals. This act of compassion and courage changed Moses’ life. The father of the girls welcomed Moses into their community, and in time, Moses married one of those seven girls, Zipporah. Zipporah and Moses had a son named Gershom. 

Over the next 40 years, Moses served as a shepherd in the wilderness. While Moses might not have known it, he was being prepared for his life calling. That story begins in Exodus 3 at a burning bush. 

I encourage you to read today’s verses because I want you to consider how God might work in your life in a similar way that He did in Moses’ life. You may wonder how you ended up in the wilderness and why you’re here today. I don’t know that answer either, but I do know that throughout the Bible, God used the wilderness to prepare men and women for their purpose and calling. 

Many people have said, “you cannot take people somewhere you have never been yourself.” This is the reason why we trust a ranger in a national park or a guide on a tour. We believe they’ve been where they’re leading us, therefore we can trust them to show us the way. 

Similarly, when we’re in the wilderness, we need someone well-acquainted with the wilderness to guide us through this scary territory. Moses would go on to lead the people through the desert from Egypt to the Promised Land because he had spent 40 years in the wilderness – both the literal wilderness of Midian and the spiritual wilderness it represented as well. 

Have you stopped to consider that your current wilderness adventure might be bigger than you? Is it possible God is allowing you to go through this season, so you are equipped to serve others who end up in similar adversity? What if you are being prepared for a purpose and calling that is bigger than you imagine through what God does in your soul during this time? 

If God used 40 years alone in Midian to prepare Moses for 40 years together with the people of Israel in the desert, then God might be at work in ways you cannot see right now. But, just because you cannot see or understand doesn’t mean you cannot trust Him. 

We serve a God who wastes nothing, including our pain and a crisis. God is at work in the wilderness and if we will remain open and attentive to His movement here, who knows what we might see and what He might do?