The Wilderness Experience

After a person truly turns to Christ and receives the assurance of God's forgiveness for their past sins, there is usually a short period of joy and blessing where everything seems so wonderful and new! During this period answers to prayer come easily, and God seems to give lots of favor. This may be compared to the joy that the Israelites had in leaving Egypt to head for the Promised Land. The Egyptians gave them all the gold and silver they asked for, they had been spared the judgments that came on those Egyptians such as the death of the firstborn, and they were finally free from their slavery! Hallelujah!

Yet experience and the Scriptures teach us that after this short period of joy and blessing we will eventually enter a dry wilderness. This is not to say that we will be dry spiritually. It is God's will for us to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit from day one (Ephesians 5:18), and God does not withhold the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him. The Holy Spirit is the one who encourages us in good times as well as tough times. We need Him. Yet it is possible even to be full of the Holy Spirit, and go through a wilderness experience in which there is almost nothing in your circumstances to encourage you. You may be just surviving from day to day financially or materially. You may be waiting for your healing to manifest. It is all totally unpleasant for your flesh. Instead of prosperity there will be trials and pressure. Your peace will be assaulted by all kinds of negative emotions and thoughts, which you will need to resist. It's a test, but God has promised that you will never be tempted beyond your ability to endure, with with each temptation He will also make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

During the wilderness experience of the Israelites, there were periods where they got hungry, other times when they got thirsty. At times like this, instead of remembering God's great and mighty works from the past, and trusting Him, the Israelites frequently complained against Moses and against God. At times they spoke of going back to Egypt. They remembered the food they enjoyed there, and seemed to have forgotten what it was like to be slaves under cruel taskmasters. They just wanted to go back to Egypt. Egypt in the Bible is a type or symbol of Satan's world system. Their attitude mirrors the attitude of those Christians who, after a difficult season in the wilderness, despise God and his promises and want to return to the world and its pleasures.

During your wilderness experience, the familiar comforts of the world will not be there for you. You have to learn to depend on God for all you need materially, emotionally, physically as well as spiritually. The temptation will be to backslide in your heart and return to find your life in the world system, thereby rejecting Christ. Many do this in their hearts well before they forsake church fellowship and get involved again in open, wilful sin. God warns us against having an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. If indeed we do believe God, we know He will come through for us if we keep thanking Him. We trust that the wilderness time is only temporary, however tough it may seem.

Our Lord Jesus Christ also went through a wilderness experience, and He showed us how to pass through it successfully. After his baptism, and His anointing with the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures say He was "led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry" (Luke 4:1,2). There was nothing in that wilderness naturally speaking to comfort the Lord. Jesus Himself had to pass through the wilderness experience before He could be used by God to bring salvation, healing and deliverance to anyone. In verse 14, just after this time in the wilderness, it says, "Jesus returned in the power of the Holy Spirit to Galilee." Jesus is our model in these things. If we want the power of the Holy Spirit, not just the fulness, we have to pass the tests in the wilderness. Jesus did it by speaking the Word of God and ignoring the cravings of his body for food for a period of time. The same methods will work for any one of us. Christ now lives in us to make this approach a possibility for us. The Lord is the strength of our life! (Isaiah 12:2; Psalm 27:1)

Anyone who has gotten anywhere in God has gone through at least one wilderness experience. The Israelites leaving Egypt were no exception. It is normal to go through more than one such experience in your life. Wildernesses can be seasons aside with God to learn from God where there is no option to be very productive outwardly. There is almost always a period of waiting between the time you receive a promise of God in your heart, and the time of its fulfilment. Do not be surprised when this happens! There are many examples in the Bible to show us that this is the way God deals with His people. So take heart - if this is happening to you right now, it shows you are on track with God. He hasn't given up on you. He is forming you to be the kind of person who can overcome giants through faith in God, and enjoy blessings far greater than you could otherwise ever know in the world. But before you get there, you will be tested, often severely. See each trial as an opportunity to be promoted to better things in God. Its more painful to fail God's tests than it is to pass them. If you fail, He will lovingly bring you round again to face exactly the same test again and again until you learn to pass.

The length of time of a wilderness experience can vary from 40 days to 40 years. I believe our responses to God's dealings will determine how quickly we get out of the wilderness phase of our lives and into the "abundant fruitfulness" phase. The Israelites could have been out of the wilderness in 2 years if they had believed God's promises to them at the time the spies returned from Kadesh Barnea.

God will not forsake his principles in this matter for anybody. He does not play favorites, but rather, treats us according to what is in our hearts. The tests and trials are not necessary for God to know what is in our hearts, but rather for US to know. If there are problems in our attitudes, they will come out when we are squeezed or under pressure. If you want to find out what a container of toothpaste is full of, squeeze it and you will find out. When God squeezes us and puts us under pressure, we find out whether our hearts are full of faith or whether some negative attitude is lurking there.

When you think about it, God owes us nothing. If we have anything good, we should give thanks to God. Even if all our bodily desires are not satisfied, we should thank God for what we have. The goal of life is not to pander to bodily desires. The goal of life is to be like God, like Jesus, and do things that please Him out of love because He first loved us. God talks about us being predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. Many years I decided to accept this plan rather than continually fighting it. The world needs more people like Jesus. It certainly does not need more people full of selfish ambition as I was before I turned to the Lord.

So make it your aim

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