Tag: Wilderness

In the Wilderness: Learning to Fast

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“Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordon River. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where He was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.”

– Luke 4:1-2

After his baptism, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. This is an important detail of Scripture. First, that the wilderness came after the baptism. After Jesus made his public confession, the first thing God did to prepare Him for public ministry was lead him into the wilderness. He led Him at just the right time, when He was full of the Spirit, because the Spirit would be His strength. This is important to note because our times of greatest spiritual strength will be the times we are most vulnerable to attack from the enemy. We are susceptible in times of strength, because it is in our times of strength, when we are most full of the Spirit, that we pose the greatest threat to Satan and to his plans. When Scripture says Jesus was “led” it uses the Greek word “ágō” which means “to lead, or to take with one.” He doesn’t lead us into the wilderness alone, He goes with us. The word ágō means “to lead by laying hold of, to lead by accompanying, to lead with one’s self, or to attach ones self as an attendant.” Jesus being full of the Spirit when He was led into the wilderness was God’s way of attaching Himself and laying hold of Jesus as He began His earthly ministry. The Spirit had just descended on Him like a dove. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – Three in One – went into the wilderness to fight for us. They did what we could not do. When the Spirit leads us into wilderness seasons, He does not lead us where He has not already gone before. He prepared the way for us. He goes before us, and He goes with us. No matter how lonely and desolate it feels, we are not alone in the wilderness. Knowing this, believing this, and trusting this is the key to our survival.

In the wilderness, Jesus fasted for forty days. He ate nothing at all during this time, and Scripture says He became very hungry. It’s important to note that it says He became hungry. It does not say He was hungry while He was fasting, but after the fasting had ended. He was not hungry while He was fasting, because He was filled with something other than food. He was filled with the Spirit, and that’s what He drew from for His nourishment. That’s what sustained Him and satisfied Him for those forty days. When Scripture says the fasting had ended, it uses the Greek world synteléō, which means “to end together or at the same time.” The Spirit did not leave Him or forsake Him during those forty days. It sustained Him until the day of completion, until the day when He fulfilled the purpose He had been led into the wilderness for. Luke 4:13-14 says, “When the devil had finished tempting Jesus, he left Him until the next opportunity came. Then Jesus returned to Galilee, filled with the spirit’s power…” Jesus was not depleted when He left the wilderness. He was not empty; He was still filled the Spirit. He did not lose anything, but instead gained power through the Spirit, because of His wilderness experience.

One of the few plants that is able to not only survive, but thrive, in harsh wilderness conditions is the cactus. One of the few animals that is able to do so is the camel. They are both suited for these conditions because they can store water. They can carry what they need on the inside. They draw from within. They are not dependent on external circumstances for their survival. This is why we, too, should be filled with the Spirit – because only the Spirit can sustain us in the wilderness.

Most cacti live in dry areas. They often have short growing seasons, followed by long periods of drought, but they are able to survive the periods of drought because they have adapted to be able to store and conserve water. They react quickly to rainfall when it comes, quickly expanding and contracting to absorb the water through their shallow root system. They are succulents, which means they are able to store water in their stems. Water accounts for 90% of their total mass, and they retain this water in an interesting way.

Transpiration is the process of water moving through a plant and evaporating – only a small amount of water is taken up by the roots and used for growth and metabolism. Transpiration usually occurs during the cooler, more humid, night hours, so in order to reduce the water loss that occurs through transpiration, cacti store the carbon dioxide they take in as a malic acid until daylight returns, only using it in photosynthesis.

Carbon dioxide is present in the air we breath. It is absorbed by plants in photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process used by plants to convert light energy into chemical energy through cellular respiration. It can then be released to fuel the plant’s metabolic activities. Photosynthesis comes from the Greek word phōs meaning “light” and sunthesis meaning “putting together.” Through photosynthesis, oxygen is released into the air. It essentially supplies the energy necessary to maintain life on earth.

Malic acid, on the other hand, what the cactus stores the carbon dioxide as until daylight, is what contributes to the sour taste of unripe apples and other fruits.

The word for Spirit in Luke 4:1 is the Greek word pneûma which means “a movement of air.” When take in the Spirit, we take in the pneûma as a breath of air, as oxygen in our lungs.

When God created Adam and Eve, He breathed life into them. He breathed His Spirit, His pneûma, into their nostrils and they became living beings. They were filled with the Spirit. Then Satan came, just as He did with Jesus in the wilderness. And Satan tempted them with food, just as He did with Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus was tempted with bread; Adam and Eve were tempted with fruit. They saw it and desired it, and they gave into the temptation that Jesus resisted. They took it and ate it – and they stored it within. The pneûma was replaced with a malic acid – a bitterness, a sourness. Instead of being filled with the Spirit, they were filled with sinfulness. And they navigated the darkness of this world with that bitterness inside – until the daylight, until the day the Son Rose. Until the day Jesus came and took that sinfulness and transformed it into light, and released it into the world, to sustain us until the day of His return, to energize us for the work of the Kingdom, and to maintain our eternal life in Him.

Nature is truly fascinating! There is so much we can learn through the intricate details of how God has created and designed this earth. Just as we can learn from the cactus, so can we learn from the camel.

Throughout history, camels have been used to transport people through the desert because of how well suited they are to endure the dry conditions. They don’t store water directly in their humps as is commonly believed, but the humps are used as reservoirs for fatty tissue, which yields water when it metabolizes. The process of the fat metabolizing also releases energy which causes water to evaporate from the lungs. When the camel exhales, water vapor becomes trapped in their nostrils and is reabsorbed into the body as a means to conserve water. Even their long legs serve a purpose, helping keep their body farther from the ground, which can heat up to 158°F. Camels rarely sweat, even in the intense desert heat, and when they do sweat it evaporates at the skin level rather than at the surface of their coat. While other livestock can lose 20-40 liters of water per day, a camel typically loses only 1.3 liters. Because of these adaptations, they can survive long periods of time without any external source of water. In fact, dromedary camels can drink as little as once every 10 days and can lose up to 30% of its body mass due to dehydration. In comparison, other mammals can usually only withstand losing 12-14% before cardiac failure results. Camels also have oval shaped red blood cells that make them better able to withstand the flow of blood during dehydration and allows them to drink large amounts of water in a short amount of time without rupturing. For example, a 1,300lb camel can drink up to 53 gallons of water in only three minutes.

Psalm 119:11 says, “I have hidden Your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”

Jesus had hidden God’s word in His heart, and He drew on it for His strength so that He might not sin when He was tempted in the wilderness. For every temptation, Jesus counteracted with a word of Scripture. For every lie, He came against it with Truth. He was prepared. He was girded with Truth, and the Sword of the Spirit was His weapon of defense. He knew the Word. He had stored the Word in His heart, so He could draw it to remembrance and speak it into life when He needed it the most.

 In John 4:13-14 when Jesus encounters the woman at the well, He tells her, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

Psalm 42:1-2 says, “As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God.”

We should pant after God as a deer panteth for the water, and we should lap it up as a camel laps up water from a stream in the desert. The blood of Jesus has changed us from the inside out. The blood of Jesus has given us a capacity that goes beyond human understanding – a capacity to love and be loved by the Creator this Universe. That love bubbles within us, and never runs dry. We can return to Him time and time again, and He will fill us to overflowing.

After her conversation with Jesus at the well, Scripture says the woman “left her jar beside the well” (v. 28) and ran back to the village, telling everyone to come and see Jesus, to taste and see that He was good. She left what she had brought to carry her water in, because she had been filled up on the inside. The jar was not enough to contain what she had received. She had drank to overflowing. She was filled, and she was pouring herself out to draw others in, so they too could draw nourishment from this stream of living water who’s name was Jesus.

“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.”

– Romans 15:13

Not only was the woman filled through this experience, but Jesus was filled too. Scripture says the disciples later came to Jesus urging Him to eat and He responded by telling them, “I have a kind of food that you know nothing about… My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing His work” (v. 32-33). True nourishment comes from within. It comes from the Word of God. It comes from the Will of God. Only He can satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts.

Jesus knew what it meant to be hungry. In Luke 4:2, the word hunger means, “to suffer want or to be needy.” It can also be interpreted to mean, “to crave ardently, and to seek with eager desire.” Because Jesus was hungry, that’s where Satan attacked first. “If you are the Son of God,” Satan said, “tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.” By starting his question with “if” Satan was attempting to get Jesus to question His very identity. But Jesus didn’t fall for his scheme. Jesus responded and told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone.'”

Jesus had not only studied the Word to know this, but He had lived the Word to know this. Because He had fasted, He had feasted on God. He had been spiritually fed though His physical stomach was empty. He had been spiritually nourished, though physically famished.

What is it that you are hungering for? What are you thirsting for? Be aware of these desires, because they will be your point of weakness in the wilderness. As Max Lucado writes, “Bring your weakness to God before Satan brings them to you.”

It is no coincidence that both the temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden and the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness revolved around food. This is no coincidence because there is a clear correlation between food and sin when it comes our self-discipline. Food is necessary for our survival, but is also desirable for our own personal pleasure. In the same way, our sin is often instinctual because it is driven by our fleshly desires and pleasures, but we have to remain in control of it in order to avoid it controlling us. This battle of flesh vs. spirit is a battle of the mind.

When Jesus teaches on fasting in Matthew 6, He does not say if you fast, but when you fast. It was implied that fasting was already a part of the regular routine for those He was speaking to. Fasting is an essential spiritual discipline. It is vital to our spiritual growth and development. It is how we fight our battles – we starve the flesh to feed our spirit. We hunger and thirst for righteousness. Through fasting, we empty ourselves to be filled with the Spirit. In John 6:35, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Fasting is a way for us to disrupt our daily rhythms and set our minds on things above where our true satisfaction comes from. Fasting is a way for us to shift our focus so we are not dependent on bread for life, but instead are dependent on the bread of life. It is a way for us to break free from unhealthy patterns of eating and an unhealthy relationship with food. When we fast from physical bread, we feast on spiritual manna that comes from above. We trust God to provide enough manna for each day. We look to Him to satisfy the deepest longings and cravings of our hearts.

This is not easy, but this is necessary.

I heard a Pastor say recently that the first sign of a culture that is turned away from God is that the body becomes a new locus point of worship. How present is this in our society? Do we not see it in our culture’s obsession with sex, with food, and with physical appearance? We have to break free from this. We have to resist the urge to fit in. We have to stand up and stand out. We have to become counter-cultural. Our body is intended to be a place for the presence of God to dwell. Instead, we have made it a place of pleasure and performance. We allow it to dictate to us its desires, rather than us reminding it of it’s purpose. With fasting, we regain control over our bodies. We remind our bodies that they were created for God, and not the other way around. Fasting and prayer is a way for us to turn our bodies from an enemy into an ally in the fight against the sinfulness and principalities of this world.

“…God did what the law could not do. He sent His own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.”

– Romans 8:3-4

In Scripture, fasting is almost always accompanied by prayer. In Matthew 6:5-18 Jesus teaches us about prayer and fasting. He doesn’t just teach us how to pray, He shows us how to pray. He tells us prayer should be private, personal, and purposeful. “When you pray,” He says, “Go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private” (v.6). Jesus lived this out. Throughout Scripture, we see Him “going away” to pray.

Mark 1:35 says, “Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray.”

Matthew 14:23 says, “After sending them home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray.”

Luke 5:16 says, “ But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.“

The wilderness is a dry, desolate place. The Greek word “érēmos” means “a solitary place” or “a lonely place.”

Because the wilderness is a place of solitude, it is a place well-suited for prayer. But what we fear most about the wilderness, even more than the lack of food, is the loneliness. We fear being alone. That is why “solitude confinement” is one of the worst forms of punishment. We are afraid to get alone with our thoughts, alone with our fears, alone with our anxieties – but that’s exactly where God wants to meet us at. There is a deep internal work that sometimes only the wilderness can bring to light, and only prayer and fasting can work to transform.

In her book, Braving the Wilderness, Brené Brown writes, “True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness.”

It’s important for us to remember that being alone is not the same as be lonely. We may feel lonely in the wilderness, but we are never truly alone. The Spirit always accompanies us where He leads us. He will not leave or forsake us. Still, we fear going into the wilderness, into the silence and solitude, because we know that just as sure as Jesus is there – Satan is also there, waiting to attack. We know that in the wilderness, our weakness will be exposed.

We could not survive the wilderness on our own – that is why we must learn to pray and fast. The keys to physical survival in the wilderness are fire, shelter, and water. The keys to spiritual survival in the wilderness are the Holy Spirit, Fasting, and Prayer. This is how will endure. This is how we will not only survive, but thrive. This is how we will learn and grow. This is how we will make the most of our wilderness experience. Eventually we will come to love the wilderness, because we will find it is the place where we fall in love with Jesus, where we build intimacy with Him. It will become our hiding place, our space space, our place of refuge. He will call us back to this place time and time again. As He says in Hosea 2:14, “I will win her back once again. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there.”

There is a song by Elevation Worship called Great Things and the lyrics provide such a beautiful perspective of the wilderness. It says, “Thank You for the wilderness, where I learned to thirst for Your presence. If I’d never known that place, how could I have known You are better? Thank You for the lonely times, when I learned to live in the silence. As the other voices fade, I can hear You calling me, Jesus. And it’s worth it all, just to know You more.”

Rest assured, the wilderness season you are living in now will not last forever. The Spirit led you in, and the Spirit will lead you out. But while you’re there, embrace this season for all that it is and all that it has to offer. Learn how to fast and pray, and allow these practices to draw you close to the Father. Allow these practices to shape you more into His image. Allow these practices to strengthen you and empower you for the spiritual warfare you are sure to encounter there. Don’t allow this wilderness season to leave you unchanged. Leave your mark on the wilderness, and allow the wilderness to leave it’s mark on you.

“Even the wilderness and desert will be glad in those days.
The wasteland will rejoice and blossom with spring crocuses.
Yes, there will be an abundance of flowers
and singing and joy!
The deserts will become as green as the mountains of Lebanon,
as lovely as Mount Carmel or the plain of Sharon.
There the Lord will display his glory,
the splendor of our God.
With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands,
and encourage those who have weak knees.
Say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, and do not fear,
for your God is coming to destroy your enemies.
He is coming to save you.”

And when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind
and unplug the ears of the deaf.
The lame will leap like a deer,
and those who cannot speak will sing for joy!
Springs will gush forth in the wilderness,
and streams will water the wasteland.
The parched ground will become a pool,
and springs of water will satisfy the thirsty land.
Marsh grass and reeds and rushes will flourish
where desert jackals once lived.

And a great road will go through that once deserted land.
It will be named the Highway of Holiness.
Evil-minded people will never travel on it.
It will be only for those who walk in God’s ways;
fools will never walk there.
Lions will not lurk along its course,
nor any other ferocious beasts.
There will be no other dangers.
Only the redeemed will walk on it.
Those who have been ransomed by the Lord will return.
They will enter Jerusalem singing,
crowned with everlasting joy.
Sorrow and mourning will disappear,
and they will be filled with joy and gladness.“

– Isaiah 35

Silence, Solitude, and Secrecy

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In Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. In the original Greek language, the word for “led” in the first verse is anagō which means “to lead up” or “to bring to a higher place.” Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness. The wilderness was a higher place. I take comfort in that small detail of Scripture. I take comfort in knowing that when God leads me to dry, desolate, lonely, and solitary places it’s because He wants to take me higher spiritually. He wants me to reach new heights of Spiritual growth that only the wilderness can develop.

Think about a tree – the deeper the roots go, the higher the tree grows. But the deeper those roots go, the darker it becomes. That seed, when first placed in the ground, doesn’t know what’s yet to come. The seed doesn’t understand the purpose of being placed in the soil. The seed doesn’t see the tree it will become. There’s a saying I love that says, “Sometimes when we think we’ve been buried; we’ve just been planted.” It’s so true! Don’t negate those wilderness seasons of your life. Don’t lose hope in those dark days under the soil. There is a purpose yet to be revealed once you’ve endured this dark and lonely season.

In the wilderness, Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights. After fasting forty days and forty nights, He became hungry. And then Satan came to tempt Him. What does it tell us about Satan that he came after Jesus had fasted, after Jesus was hungry? It tells us that Satan comes to us when we are vulnerable. Jesus may have been physically weak for lack of food, but He was spiritually strong. Psalm 73:26 says, “My flesh and heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” We can be at our strongest spiritually when we are at our weakest physically because it is in those times that we are fully dependent and trusting on God to be our strength. Satan will choose to come against us at that very time, because it’s in those moments of spiritual strength that we pose the greatest threat to him and his demons.

Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights. This number is significant. It’s a number we see consistently throughout Scripture. When God flooded the earth and saved only Noah and his family, it rained for forty days (Genesis 7:17). When Moses received the Ten Commandments from God on Mt. Sinai, he fasted for forty days and forty nights (Exodus 34:28). The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years before reaching the Promised Land (Numbers 14:34). The number “forty” represents trials and testing. It represents a probationary period. It represents a time of preparation for what will come next. Consider the context of Jesus during this testing of His faith in the wilderness. Immediately before being led to the wilderness, Jesus was baptized. Immediately following His temptation in the wilderness, He began His public ministry. God leads us to wilderness seasons to prepare us for where He is taking us next.

Satan’s primary weapon of attack in the wilderness is deception. He deceives us by trying to get us to misinterpret God’s Word. He wants us to doubt God’s truth. He wants us to question God’s goodness. When he came against Eve in the Garden of Eden, he asked her, “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in garden?” When he came against Jesus in the wilderness he said, “If you really are the Son of God, tell theses stones to become bread.” His subtly is his strategy, so we have to be attentive. He wants us to question our identity. He wants us to doubt who we are and who God is. He wants to doubt that we truly belong to the family of God. He wants us to doubt that God truly is good and has our best interest in mind. It’s easy to be swayed by the lies of the enemy if we aren’t firmly grounded in the truth of God’s Word. We have to cling tightly to Word of God and hide His Words in our heart, because that’s how we endure the wilderness. We combat the lies of Satan with the truth of God.

When Satan tempts us, he also appeals to our selfishness and pride. He tempts with instant gratification. Why wait when you can have what you want right now? Why give to others when you can keep for yourself? With Jesus, he urged Him to feed Himself, to save Himself, to take the kingdoms of the world for Himself. With Eve, he told her she would be like God. Jesus is the only One who actually IS God, but He resisted the temptation to prematurely put His divinity on display. Jesus was not thinking about Himself. He was thinking about us and about our need for a Savior. He faced the same temptations we do, but He sinned not. He was more concerned with our eternal salvation than with His own temporary satisfaction.

The first temptation Satan tried to lure Jesus with was food. Food is not sinful. Hunger is a perfectly normal and natural desire. But there are times when we are tempted to satisfy a perfectly normal or natural desire in a wrong way or at a wrong time – and Jesus resisted that temptation. Satan was tempting Jesus to use His divinity to satisfy the needs of His humanity. Looking forward to the cross, Jesus knew He would be faced with this same temptation. He could have used His divinity to save Himself from the physical pain of the cross, but He didn’t. In the desert, Jesus hungered, and on the cross one of the last words He uttered was “I thirst.” His humanity was fully on display in both instances. Jesus is fully human and fully divine. He sacrificed His human life to offer us eternal life, and He defeated death to show us how to truly live.

Satan’s next lure was mankind’s attention and awe. Once again, the longing for human affirmation is not sinful in itself, but when we live for that longing it becomes sinful. When we live to seek attention and applause, it is both self-serving and short-sighted. Jesus could have jumped off the highest point of the Temple and saved Himself, but He was looking ahead. He was looking beyond Himself. He knew He was there for a greater purpose. Instead of making a spectacle of Himself by performing this great feat, He chose instead to begin His ministry as a relatively unknown Rabbi, the son of a carpenter, a friend of sinners. Instead of capturing the attention and awe of the people in single moment, He chose instead to be hated and rejected by the people He came to save. He chose the path no one else would have chosen, to fulfill a purpose no one else could fulfill.

And the final temptation Jesus faced was the temptation of earthly power and possession. This temptation appeals to our innate desire for influence and authority. We all want to make a difference in this world, and Jesus could have done immense good with the power and authority Satan gave Him, but Satan was offering something that was not his to give. Satan is the prince of this present world, but Jesus had come to save the world yet to come. In the book Anonymous, Alicia Britt Chole writes, “Jesus had come to suffer for sinners. Satan suggested that He sin to avoid suffering. Jesus had come to die for the world. Satan offered him the world without dying… He tempted Jesus to give up His soul permanently to gain the world temporarily… Satan asked Jesus to trade the eternal for the visible, which is something he still invites us to do every day.”

Jesus counteracted the temptations of Satan with Scripture. The exact verses He used were Deuteronomy 8:3, Deuteronomy 6:16, and Deuteronomy 6:13. When you go back and read these verses, you realize how important it is that these are the verses Jesus used. Deuteronomy 8:2-5 in particular is Moses reminding the Israelites that God led them through the wilderness for forty years – testing them, and humbling them. The fact that Jesus chose this Scripture reveals His knowledge of Scripture. He knew exactly what verse He needed to recall to mind to resist the temptation, to endure the wilderness, and to remind Himself of the greater purpose of God at work.

Jesus was prepared for the wilderness because He practiced cultivation in His hidden years.

I first heard this phrase “practice cultivation” in a letter I received from a 14-year old girl named Grace who lived in Kenya and it has stuck with me ever since. I received a letter from Grace via Compassion International, and in this particular letter she was telling me all about the crops her family had been planting and harvesting that year. Then she asked, “Do you practice cultivation?” The question was so simple and beautiful. My honest answer was no – I’ve never tilled up a ground, never planted a seed, never waited and prayed for rain, never worked dawn to dusk in a field, never sweated and labored to produce a harvest of food. When I get hungry, I usually get in my car and drive around a building for them to hand me an already prepared meal out a window. Or maybe, I’ll walk into a building with shelves lined with food that has already been labored over and is packaged and ready for me to take home and prepare. I don’t practice cultivation, and it pained me to admit that. In a sense, it felt like I was making a confession of guilt.

And then I thought about it on a spiritual level. Do I practice cultivation? And once again, my honest answer would likely be no. Not nearly as often or as much as I should. I go to church and listen to the Pastor, but then I go home, and what happens? Maybe I’ll get in a a good routine of prayer and study for a few weeks, maybe even a few months, and then it will dwindle away again. Maybe I practice cultivation, but I don’t do it well. To cultivate means to “prepare and use land for crops or gardening; to promote or improve the growth of a plant by labor and attention.” If you’re in a wilderness season of your life right now, a season when you feel lonely and God feels distant or quiet – till the ground. Start practicing cultivation. The wilderness you’re in is a gift, an opportunity to prepare and use the land. It’s a blank canvas. We practice cultivation by practicing spiritual disciplines. When you practice spiritual disciplines, you are making an investment in your future and in the Kingdom of God. You are investing your time and energy towards producing a harvest of spiritual growth that will feed generations to come. God wants to use you in this season.

One of the most eye-opening experiences I ever had when reading the Bible was when I read Jeremiah 29:11 in full context. Jeremiah 29:11 is one of my favorite verses. “‘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.'” During this time, the Israelites were in exile in the wilderness and they were starting to get defeated and discouraged. They were losing hope that they would ever make it out alive. A false prophet came and told they would be free in two years. It gave them hope, but it was a false hope. They were being comforted with a lie. Then Jeremiah came with a word from God. He told them to get comfortable in the wilderness – to build houses, plant gardens, get married, and have children. He told them they would be there for another 70 years, and then God would come and fulfill His promise. This was a hard truth, but it was truth nonetheless. Imagine their disappointment if those two years had come and gone and they were still not free? They would have lost complete hope and trust in God’ promises. They would have wasted two years of their lives waiting for a deliverance that would never come. Instead, they were able to practice cultivation in the wilderness. They were able to live full, expectant, and hopeful lives for those 70 years.

When you think about cultivation, how is it that you cultivate a relationship? Relationships are cultivated through communication – by talking, and listening, and asking questions. Relationships are cultivated by spending time together – you pick up on the other person’s likes, interests, and personality traits when you are interacting with them on a regular basis. Relationships are also cultivated by establishing trust. Trust is established by a lot of little moments that add up over time. Trust happens when you show up and do what you said you were going to do. Trust happens when you follow through with your commitments consistently.

So, with that in mind, how do we cultivate our relationship with God? It’s simple: Communication, Spending Time Together, and Establishing Trust. Silence, Solitude, and Secrecy. We communicate with Him in our silence. We spend time with Him in our solitude. We learn to trust Him when He consistently shows up in the secret places and spaces our hearts.

Silence

Silence is an important part of the way we communicate with God because we learn in 1 Kings 19:11-13 that He speaks in a still, small voice. I once heard a message by Steven Furtick in which He talked about why God whispers – and that’s because you only whisper to someone when they’re close beside you. God is close to us. That’s why He whispers. It’s intimate. It’s personal. It’s between Him and us. Another reason silence is important is because faith comes through hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17) and we can’t hear His Words if we’re distracted by all the noise around us. When we’re silent in His presence, we’re more attentive. When we’re more attentive, we’re more receptive. God is speaking, but are we really listening? Can we really hear?

Have you ever noticed that we’re afraid of silence? Why is that? I think it’s because we don’t like being alone with our own thoughts. We always tend to fill the silence with music, tv, and mindless chatter. In our society and in our culture, we are never truly in silence. Even with no music, no TV, and no one around me talking – I can still hear the hum of the AC, the passing of cars outside the window, the ticking of a clock in the other room. To be in complete silence would be such a stark contrast from our daily lives that it would throw us into a state of shock and panic. As Dallas Willard writes in Spirit of the Disciplines, “Silence is frightening because it strips us as nothing else does, throwing us upon the stark realities of our life. It reminds us of death, which will cut us off from this world and leave only us and God.”

The quieter we become, the more we hear. When we get quiet, we listen better. The less I talk, the fuller my words become. We need to learn the art of thinking before we speak. That’s why practicing silence and getting into a quiet place with God, is considered a spiritual discipline. We need to embrace the quiet. Lamentations 3:26 tells us to “wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.” In Psalm 62:1, David writes, “I wait quietly before God for my victory comes from Him.” Isaiah 30:15 tells us our strength is found “in quietness and confidence.”

Solitude

Solitude is how we spend time alone with God. Jesus Himself would often withdraw to quiet, solitary places to be alone with God. Mark 1:35 says, “Before daybreak, Jesus got up and went to an isolated place to pray.” Matthew 14:13 says, “He left in a boat to a remote area to be alone.” In Luke 5:16 we are told that Jesus “often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.” And He invites us to do the same. In Mark 6:31-32 He told His disciples, “Let’s go by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” In Matthew 6:6 He says, “When you pray, go away by yourself and shut the door.”

Similar to silence, we tend to fear solitude as well. In fact, one of our worst forms of punishment in the Western world today is solitary confinement. Dallas Willard describes our fear of solitude by saying, “In solitude, we confront our own soul with its obscure forces and conflicts that escape our attention when we are interacting with others… It serves to crack open and burst apart the shell of our superficial securities. It opens out to us the unknown abyss that we all carry within us… We can only survive solitude if we cling to Christ there.”

Secrecy

Secrecy is not one of the well-known spiritual disciplines, but it is a discipline nonetheless. Secrecy is one of the ways we build trust and intimacy with God. Throughout the Gospels, have you noticed that Jesus often told His followers to “tell no one” of the miracles He performed? We see this in Mark 1:40-45 and Mark 7:32-37. Why do you think Jesus would say this? I don’t know the answer for sure, but one thing I do know is that when God heals us, our lives reflect it. Our testimony speaks for itself. Our newfound joy seeps out in our words and in our actions. Jesus wanted to be known for the message He spoke, not simply for the miracles He performed. He wanted people to follow Him because of who He was, not because of what He could do for them. He wanted followers of genuine faith, not superficial faith. After all, true faith is believing without seeing. Secrecy is an important part of our relationship with God, because if you’ve ever prayed a prayer that was only between you and God and then you saw that prayer answered, then you know how powerful that is. You can’t help but be amazed. It’s such a bolster to our faith, because it shows us that we are seen, and loved, and heard by God. We walk away from those moments knowing that only God could have come through in the way that He did because only God knew the true desire and plea of your heart.

There are countless times throughout Scripture when reference is made to a “secret place.” Psalm 139:15 says we are formed in the secret place. Those 9 months when we are hidden in our mother’s womb are essential for our growth and development. Psalm 27:5 tells us we are protected in the secret place. He shelters us in His Temple and places us up on a high rock where out of the enemy’s reach and safe from the storms around us. Psalm 91:1-2 tells us we find rest in the secret place. If we live in His shelter, we will find comfort and security in His shadow. In Exodus 33:20-23 we learn that it is in the shadow where we can experience God’s presence. Moses had to remain hidden in the crevice of a rock while God’s Spirit passed by – and still His face shown so brightly that everyone knew He had been with God before He ever spoke a word. As Dallas Willard writes, “In the discipline of secrecy – we abstain from causing our good deeds and qualities to be known… As we practice this discipline, we learn to love to be unknown and even to accept misunderstanding without the loss of our peace, joy, and purpose… Secrecy rightly practiced enables us to place our public relationship department entirely in the hands of God, who lit our candles so we could be the light of the world, not so we could hide under a bushel. We allow him to decide when our deeds will be known and when our light will be noticed.”

Be silent before Him.

Be still in His presence.

Dwell in the secret place.

In that stark aloneness – in that silence and solitude that only wilderness seasons reveal – build a house, plant a garden, and get comfortable. Practice cultivation in the wilderness. Practice spiritual disciplines. Lift your eyes, heart, and hands to the Heavens – and know that He is God. He is preparing you through this season. He is preparing you for greater things that are yet to come.

When the Fog Lifts

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fog

“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”

I Corinthians 13:12 NLT

     Have you ever drove through a dense fog? It’s terrifying, especially if you’re in an unfamiliar area. Last year, my family went on our annual fall mountain trip and one day we decided to take a slight detour and drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while to enjoy the views, but that journey did not go as planned. As we drove, we entered into a thick fog and couldn’t even see the road in front of us, let alone the views around us. We had to significantly reduce our speed, and follow as close as possible to the car in front of us – just to feel safe and be able to see where we were going.

Doesn’t life feel like that sometimes?

Like a dense fog has come and settled on the plan you had envisioned for your life?

I know it has for me.

It’s scary to feel so lost, so out of control, so blinded by obscurity and insecurity. You can’t see what’s in front of you, you don’t know what you’re walking into, so you just have to follow close to the One in front you. You just have to slow down, and be still, and trust that you’re being led in the right direction. You just have to wait for the fog to lift.

On our trip this year, we encountered the fog again, but this time it was different. This time we weren’t driving through it, we were at the house – which sits on top of a mountain. This time we were able to step out on the porch and look out over the fog-covered country hillside. We were able to see the fog from a different perspective, and it was beautiful. The view from the mountain gave clarity to a cloudy situation.

We all took out our cameras to capture the image – so peaceful and and serene.

It’s amazing how a simple change in perspective can completely alter the way you see and experience things. The source of our fear in the valley, the challenge we were forced to overcome, became a thing of beauty to be captured and treasured from up above.

That’s the thing about fog – it looks like mystery, but it feels like peace.

And believe it or not, the two can exist simultaneously – I see it and feel it in the person of the Holy Spirit.

He is my mysterious sense of peace.

He grows my trust by clouding my vision.

He gains by trust by leading me through obscurity and into purpose.

He whispers, just be still.

And in the stillness of the moment, I sense the stillness of His presence.

So constant, so secure.

In the Old Testament, God led the Israelites through through the wilderness by a pillar of fire in the night and a cloud in day. He made His presence visible. He made His presence known.

What is the difference between a cloud and a fog? The only difference is that fog is a cloud which has made contact with the ground, it has touched the surface of the earth.

The Holy Spirit comes to us as a fog, because He has touched this earth. His feet have walked the same ground we have walked.

When life gets foggy, we should count it as a blessing, because that means the Holy Spirit has settled in around us.

In Numbers 9:15-23 when the Israelites had set up the tabernacle in the wilderness, a cloud came and settled over it. When the cloud covered the tabernacle, the Isreaelites remained encamped, but when the cloud lifted they set out and continued their journey. Scripture says sometimes the cloud would stay only a day or two, sometimes a month, or even a year. But no matter how long it lasted, the Israelites remained obedient and didn’t set out until it lifted.

God was in control then, and He is in control now. He knows if the place we are headed to is not ready for our arrival yet. He knows if the road before us isn’t safe to travel yet. He knows we may not be prepared yet for what we will encounter along the way. So He sends a cloud, He sends a fog. He clouds our vision temporarily to keep us still, and to keep us safe. At the right time, He will lift the fog and we can press forward.

But we have to trust Him.

I’m a writer. When I start writing, I like to have the end in mind before I ever get started. Once my starting point and ending point are established, I can build out and develop everything in between. I used to do the same thing when I was younger and would go pick out a book to read at the library, I would read the first paragraph and the last paragraph in order to decide if I wanted to read that particular book or not.

But that’s not how life works. I can’t see the end, I can’t predict how the story will unfold. I am not the author of my life, and the pen is not mine to bear. It’s inevitable that you will always end up disappointed when you try to imagine the end of a story that you didn’t write. There’s always something you would have done differently, something you wished did or didn’t happen.

But what would happen if we always left the foggy situations out? What if everything was always clear and there was never any mystery? What kind of story would that tell?

Throughout Scripture, the greatest stories are those shrouded in mystery.

When Noah was instructed to build an ark because of an impending flood, rain had not yet fallen from from sky (Genesis 2:6).

When the Isrealites were hungry in the wilderness, God provided bread from heaven, and the Isrealites called it “manna” which means “What is it?” (Exodus 16:14-15)

When Sarah heard she would be with child in her old age, she laughed at the thought (Genesis 18:11-12).

When the Angel of the Lord appeared to Mary and told her she would be with child, her response was “How can this be?” (Luke 1:34)

When Paul encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, He was blinded for three days afterwards. And the men traveling with him simply stood there speechless as the event took place because they could hear Jesus speaking, but couldn’t see Him (Acts 9:7-9).

Imagine the fog these great leaders of our faith must have felt as they lived these stories out. Imagine the fear, the confusion, the cloudiness, and the disbelief. But imagine Noah, when that first drop of rain fell and He saw that what God had said was true, and He knew that His family would be safe because He had been obedient to God’s instruction. Imagine the peace that put His mind at ease when the ark came to rest and He saw the very first rainbow spread out across the sky as a sign of God’s promise. Imagine the Israelites, after praying and seeking God for provision, walking out and seeing the answer to their prayers on the ground before them – not at all what they expected, but exactly what they needed. Imagine the all-consuming joy of Sarah when she first held her son in her arms – the answer to a prayer she had already given up hope on ever receiving. Imagine Mary – giving birth, having never known a man. Imagine her watching Jesus grow up – holding his hand as he learned to walk, picking him when he fell down, soothing his pain we he was sick or hurting, wiping his tears when he was sad or upset… all the while knowing He would be the One to save mankind from their sins. Imagine Paul, the one who had dedicated his life to persecuting Christians and having them killed, standing up to preach for the first time and declaring the name of Jesus as the only way to be saved and made righteous. Imagine the first time he sat down to write a letter, never having been able to anticipate or imagine the lasting power and impact his words would have.

Imagine the perspective these saints of God have now – now that they’ve been raised from the fog of this earth. I imagine each time they hear someone call on the name of Jesus, or come to new life in Jesus – that they count every doubt, every fear, every earthly worry, and every earthly tear as worth it. Because Jesus is worthy.

The fogginess we’re enduring now is serving a purpose we can’t see.

This story God is writing is full of intricate details that we can’t see or understand, but one day we will. One day the fog will lift – One day it will all make perfect sense and we will see it all with perfect clarity.

Taste and See

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When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, Scripture says He hungered (Matthew 4:2). I’ve read before that for hunger pains to return after such a long period of fasting, it was sign that Jesus was literally starving to death.

Has the Spirit of God ever led you to a place where you felt like you were starving to death?

Spiritual hunger, much like physical hunger, makes us desperate – desperate for relief, desperate to be filled. Hunger humbles us. It produces a need for provision.

So how do we react in these wilderness seasons? How do we react to to the hunger? Do we look to Heaven for manna? Do we look to Jesus with His five loaves and two fish?

Or do we walk around downtrodden? Do we question God’s goodness for leading us to a place of such emptiness? Do we question His faithfulness leaving us so hungry?

I’ve noticed throughout Scripture, and in my own personal experiences, that when Satan attacks – the first thing he wants us to question is the goodness of God’s character.

He did it with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He did it with the Israelites roaming in the wilderness. And He tried to do it with Jesus…

But Jesus answered and said to him, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4 KJV).

Jesus was prepared for Satan’s attack, because He had found nourishment and sustenance in the Word of God. Jesus counteracted Satan’s attack with a quote from Deuteronomy 8:3 – a reminder of what God had done for the Israelites.

The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years. God was leading them to a promised land, but they were longing for the days of slavery. They couldn’t see where they were going, and couldn’t understand why God was taking them the way He was. The desert is a dry and desolate place. It makes us doubt the goodness of God. It makes us doubt His presence, doubt His power, and doubt His promise. But even in our doubting, God is faithful still. The Israelites were starving in the desert. They hungered – they longed to be filled. The wilderness felt like a wasteland, like a waiting room – and death was just beyond the door. But the Lord heard their grumbling, heard their complaining, and He said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions” (Exodus 16:4 NIV).

God was faithful to provide what they needed most, when they needed it most. But God’s provision didn’t look like what they expected. In fact, God’s provision didn’t look like anything they had ever seen before. Scripture says when the Israelites saw it the next morning, they said to each other, “What is it?” because they didn’t know what it was. They called it manna, which literally means “What is it?”

In her book One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp writes, “Hungry – they chose to gather up that which is baffling. They fill on that which has no meaning. More than 14,600 days they take their daily nourishment from that which they don’t comprehend. They find soul-filling in the inexplicable. They eat the mystery.” I love that connection – because we all go through wilderness experiences in our lifetimes. We all go through dry seasons. We all go through times when we can’t wrap our minds around why God does the things He does. But if we could wrap our mind around it, would He even be God?

One of the Scriptures that brings me the most comfort in wilderness seasons is Isaiah 55:8-9 where the Lord is speaking and says, “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts and my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts’” (NLT).  We have to trust in that. We have to believe that God has something greater in store than we could ever imagine. We can’t fathom His faithfulness, because we can’t imagine the thoughts He thinks or the path He has prepared. All we know is what we see, and all we see is what we feel. We feel lost when a loved one dies, because we can’t see a future without them in it. We feel thirsty wandering a desert with no water in sight. We feel hungry when our strength is fading and there is nothing nearby to satisfy what seems to be our deepest need.

The sky may grow dark with sorrow, but by God’s grace, the sun will rise. Joy comes in the morning – even in the mourning. And in the morning, when we rise, we’ll see God’s grace. We’ll see His grace in the form of drops of dew on the ground. And from that dew will appear “thin flakes like frost” – and we’ll ask “What is it?” And we’ll hear the words of Moses echo, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat” (Exodus 16:15 NIV).

The Israelites gathered the manna – whatever it was – and ate it. They ate the mystery, ate the provision. And Scripture says it tasted “like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31 NIV). When we taste God’s mysterious manna, we will taste and see that He is good (Psalm 34:8). The Israelites couldn’t see the future. Their eyes couldn’t see, their ears couldn’t hear, and their minds couldn’t imagine (1 Corinthians 2:9). But when they tasted that manna – they were getting a foretaste of glory divine. They were getting a foretaste of the Promised Land – a land “flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 33:3). They were getting a foretaste of the Promised Messiah – a Messiah who said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35 NLT).

When the disciples gathered with Jesus at the last Passover meal, they couldn’t see into the future to know it would be their last meal with Him. When He broke the bread and gave it to them, it was like gathering manna. They didn’t understand what He meant when He said, “This is my body, which is given for you” (Luke 22:19 NLT). The manna doesn’t make sense when it’s in your hand, but once it’s digested – you’ll look back and see the faithfulness of God. You’ll see His presence with you in the toughest battle. You’ll feel His power fighting along beside you. You’ll understand that the path He took you along was the path you needed to travel to fulfill His greatest purpose.

The disciples didn’t know what they were doing when they took the bread and ate it. But when they saw His body broken on the cross – did they remember the broken bread in His hands? And flash forward to a few days later… Still blinded by sorrow, they journeyed to Emmaus with the resurrected Savior and still their eyes couldn’t see, their ears couldn’t hear, and their minds couldn’t comprehend. They didn’t even recognize Him… until they sat down to eat. Scripture says, “As they sat down to eat, He took the bread and blessed it. Then He broke it and gave it to them. Suddenly, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him” (Luke 24:30-31 NLT). What was it that caused them to recognize him at that very moment? Every scar tells a story – was it the scars on His wrists that reminded them? Or was it the bread – the manna, the mystery? Did the words He had spoken replay in their mind at that moment?

“This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Everything we do should be in remembrance of the Lord. Every time we sit around a table and break bread together – it should be a reminder of the body broken for us. We need to be reminded. That’s why the Lord commanded the Israelites to preserve some of the manna. He had them put a portion of the manna in a jar, and that jar was placed with the tablets of the law in the sacred Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 16:32-34). He wanted them to preserve it for years to come so that future generations would also be able to see and know of His faithfulness in the wilderness.

The disciples recognized Jesus at the moment they did, because they remembered. They had seen the scars and heard the stories, and they remembered His faithfulness. The manna they had tasted at that Passover meal had since digested. Looking back, they saw with more clarity the hand of God at work. The manna made sense – it wasn’t so mysterious anymore. No longer blinded by hunger – they had tasted and seen! They had tasted the Bread of Life, and received the Word of Life. Never to hunger again, never to thirst again – Completely satisfied, completely fulfilled. Even in the darkest of days and driest of seasons – The Word of God remains, and His Bread sustains.