Wilderness Lessons
Remember that the Lord your God led you on the entire journey these forty years in the wilderness, so that he might humble you and test you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.
Keep in mind that the Lord your God has been disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. – Deuteronomy 8:2, 5, CSB
The purpose of these experiences was educational. Often in the Old Testament God is shown as sending suffering to humble and to discipline His servants so that they might learn lessons they would otherwise miss…God’s methods have not changed over the centuries. The family of God still learns lessons through suffering.” – J.A. Thompson
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world…” -C.S. Lewis[i]
“There’s a faster way to get there.” I can almost hear myself saying to my phone’s Waze app. I know better than it does. And, of course sometimes I do because I know things it can’t know. But, more often than not, it has the math right and I’m wrong for assuming that my way is faster. Since Israel was a nation of slaves who had little traveling experience, I doubt many of them were interjecting similar sentiments when God led them on a path that wasn’t the fastest toward the Promised Land. Our hindsight is 20/20, in that we know the purposes of God in the process and the reality of their hearts. God was using the journey to shape them into a nation that could be called by His name. More often than not though, they were uninterested in God’s purposes. More often than not, they felt slighted, entitled, and impatient on the path God chose for them. How often are we like them? How often do I simply wish that God had me somewhere else, especially somewhere ‘better?’ How often am I uninterested and not the least bit curious about what the latest trial or hardship is showing me about me or growing in me that otherwise would never be cultivated? I wonder if the angst and disappointment of so many Christians (myself included) is because, we are anticipating the Garden and God keeps reminding us that we are in the wilderness until journey’s end? How much heart ache and heart break could be saved if we had a clear-eyed view of where we are? The wilderness is after all inhospitable, harsh, and unpleasant. No wonder hardships come to us along life’s path, even when we are following God’s lead. My hope is to create a different habit when crisis and pain and hardship show up; to turn humbly to God. To seek Him in the hard moments knowing that He hasn’t deserted me, but He is shaping me. He is cultivating more dependence on Him. He is humbling me. His discipline is something I want to lean in to so that I might be transformed more and more into the image of the Son, whose wilderness time and testing showed His identity and His humility; not obstinance and pride like mine often does. As we think on our wilderness way with God, let’s meditate on Hebrews 12:5-11:
And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:5-11, NIV)
Blog Bonus: A song for wilderness journeys : I Will Trust My Savior Jesus
[i] For a fuller understanding of this quote in context check out: https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/reflections-october-2021/