There have been times in my life when things were clicking and moving quickly. God’s plan for me was gaining ground so fast as if it were making up for lost time. Then without warning, things would come to a screeching halt. In those seasons I would wonder if I did something wrong or if I made God mad. He would seem to be silent during those times too. These periods would last days, weeks , months and even years. It made me think that the wilderness I was in was a place of punishment. However, I’ve learned that those seasons in the wilderness are periods of preparation for what’s coming.
In Exodus, we read the story of Israel being delivered from Egypt. We don’t know how long the period of the plagues were, but there were instructions for the tenth plague. In chapter 12 verse 11 God told them, “These are your instructions for eating this meal: Be fully dressed, wear your sandals, and carry your walking stick in your hand. Eat the meal with urgency, for this is the Lord’s Passover” (NLT). Freedom came quickly and they took off in the middle of the night. They hurried toward the Promised Land. God parted the Red Sea and met them at Sinai. Then the entered the wilderness of preparation for 40 years. God had moved them out of Egypt, but He had to get the Egypt out of them before they were ready to possess the land.
In 2 Corinthians 4:17 Paul reminds us, “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” God uses periods of troubles, set backs and aimless wandering to produce in us the things we need. The longer we sit and complain in these seasons, the longer it will take to get out of. They are to remove things from our lives that we can’t carry with us into the next season and to produce character traits we will need. The wilderness isn’t to necessarily punish you for mistakes as much as it is intended to prepare you and produce things in you that can’t be brought about any other way.
Photo by Nathan McBride on Unsplash
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 