Have you ever found yourself in a situation that was so far from what you’d dreamed, hoped and planned for that it’s hard to understand how you even got there? Are you in those circumstances now? Does it feel like you’re just about at the breaking point?
Do you ever feel like asking, “Lord, do You know what You’re doing? Can you not see how bad things are? Do You even care?”
I’ve been there. It feels awful. God seems far away and unconcerned.
Yesterday, I was talking with a friend who is going through a rough season very similar to what I went through a number of years ago. He and his wife have stepped out in faith to do what they sensed God calling them to do, but now it feels like God has gone silent. Hard circumstances haven’t gotten better, they’ve gotten worse.
So where is God when we really need Him? And what is He up to?
In Deuteronomy 8, it says:
Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.
Sometimes God leads us into a desert wilderness to discipline us. Don’t think of discipline as punishment, think of it more like training. God is training us to know Him, His purposes and His ways. Those are things we don’t normally learn apart from the heat and barrenness of the desert.
In the desert, God humbles us and teaches us that we can depend on Him. He removes the comfortable situation we were in and leaves us with nothing…except Himself.
When we find ourselves in a desert, we immediately begin to look for a way out. That’s natural. But don’t forget that God is up to good in the desert, not harm.
Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
You may have taken a step of faith and expected God to “bless” you for it. You trusted Him and it seemed reasonable that He would come through for you. Only He didn’t. He took you on a detour…into a desert.
Had you known that’s where He was taking you, you probably wouldn’t have gone along. You would have stayed where you were and would have missed out on the good plan God has in store for you.
Know this: the desert isn’t the destination, it’s just part of the journey. Don’t stop living while you’re there. Keep seeking Him. Keeping growing. And while you’re there, look around for others who need your help. You’ll see them everywhere. For many in the desert, an encouraging word is like a drink of cold, refreshing water. You can give it to them.
God knows the good plan He has for you. Your time in the desert will end. In the meantime, can you be okay not knowing the plan, but knowing the One who does know it?