Desert Places

The Lord . . . has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. 

Deuteronomy 2:7

When I was a young believer, I thought “mountaintop” experiences were where I would meet Jesus. But those highs rarely lasted or led to growth. Author Lina AbuJamra says it’s in the desert places where we meet God and grow. In her Bible study Through the Desert, she writes, “God’s aim is to use the desert places in our lives to make us stronger.” She continues, “God’s goodness is meant to be received in the midst of your pain, not proven by the absence of pain.” It’s in the hard places of sorrow, loss, and pain that God helps us to grow in our faith and become closer to Him. As Lina learned, “The desert is not an oversight in God’s plan but an integral part of [our] growth process.” God led many Old Testament patriarchs to the desert. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all had wilderness experiences. It was in the desert that God prepared Moses’ heart and called him to lead His people out of slavery (Exodus 3:1-2, 9-10). And it was in the desert that God “watched over [the Israelites’] journey” for forty years with His help and guidance (Deuteronomy 2:7). God was with Moses and the Israelites each step of their way through the desert, and He’s with you and me in ours. In the desert, we learn to rely on God. There He meets us—and there we grow. By Alyson Kieda REFLECT & PRAY When has God met you in a desert place? What happened as a result? Dear God, thank You for being with me in the difficult desert experiences of my life. You’re faithful and compassionate.

SCRIPTURE INSIGHT Valuable lessons can come from some of the strangest places. For ancient Israel, one of those places was the uninhabited zone known as the wilderness (Deuteronomy 2:1-7). The value that comes from trekking through such unwelcomed territory is described in chapter 8: “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 . . . . He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna . . . to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (vv. 2-3). True safety isn’t determined by our location (lions’ den, fiery furnace, valley of the shadow of death, passing through fire or water). It comes with trust in the One who goes with us regardless of where we are. Arthur Jackson