Daily Bread

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.     Exodus 16:4 ESV

Daily bread is one of the hardest concepts I personally face in trusting God.  It is a lesson in trust that the Lord brings to me repeatedly, probably because I have been such a poor student.  Like the children of Israel, I struggle to live in the here and now.  While I generally don’t long for Egypt, I tend to cling to the struggles and scarcity of the past.

Before God sent the first manna, He was very clear about how it would be disbursed and how the people were to gather it - a day’s portion every day.  He went on to give instructions for the Sabbath, the only allowance for gathering more than one day’s portion at a time.  The concept was simple and straightforward, and it was explained in detail before the first encounter with manna.

So, when manna came the first time, everyone got excited, gathered and ate their fill.  Of course, even though they had been specifically instructed not to do so, there were a few people who gathered extra to save for the next day.  I confess, I might have been one of those people.  Living the uncertain life on the move, remembering yesterday when food was scarce, and not knowing necessarily what change in location and circumstance tomorrow might bring, I probably would have gathered a little extra - just in case.

“Just in case” translates “unbelief.”

Trying to hold onto yesterday’s bread for today produced worms and stench.  And it gained the anxious (disobedient, faithless) a rebuke from Moses.

Daily bread was not just about feeding a physical hunger.  It was about testing the people’s faith and obedience.  The spiritual need of the children of Israel was greater than their physical need.  And so, God brought two lessons in one.  “I will provide,” and “you need to trust,” go hand in hand.

Trust is demonstrated in obedience.  

I read a story recently about children and marshmallows that illustrates the point very well.  Apparently, an experiment was being conducted in which children were given a single marshmallow, then left alone, with a promise that they would receive additional marshmallows if they waited to consume the first until after the tester returned.  This proved to be a very inexpensive experiment.  Very few of the children obeyed the simple instruction.  Whether the children failed to trust, or simply did not want to obey, the result was the same.  They ate the single marshmallow, so they did not receive the prize.

Such was the case for the children of Israel.  Failing to trust and obey cost them dearly.

God already knew that He was leading the people to a land of plenty.  He knew that the wilderness would bring many challenges, and that the Promised Land would bring even more - different, but more weighty challenges.  And so He started with something simple: trust Me for daily bread.  “Trust the provision.”

Ultimately, the Israelites did learn to trust for daily bread.  They failed in plenty of other ways, but they trusted the Lord for manna every morning.

The sad but important truth is this: God did not intend for the people to survive on manna for forty years.  He hadn’t wanted them to have to spend forty years wandering in the wilderness.  Including about a year that the children of Israel spent at Mount Sinai while God gave the Law and while the tabernacle was constructed and its furnishings made, it appears that Moses and the people arrived in the vicinity of Canaan about two years after leaving Egypt.  Spies were sent to check things out, and upon hearing their report, the people were fearful and refused to go into the Promised Land.  So instead of entering a land of plentiful fruits and grains, the Israelites wandered for thirty-eight more years, eating manna for thirty-eight years longer than should have been necessary.

When we fail to trust the Giver of the daily bread, we delay the blessings He has for us.

The good news for the children of Israel is that in spite of their unbelief, God continued to provide them with literal daily bread.  For forty years, manna appeared on the ground six days of every week.  Without fail.    Even when the people were faithless and rebellious, still the manna came.  

Daily bread can be a hard concept to master.  We want tomorrow’s bread today.  In truth, when we are ready, God will bring us into the place of abundance.  But first we must learn to trust for daily bread, praying, as Jesus Himself taught us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread..."

Trust. Obey. Today.

...Just a thought...

Hungry

 …for forty days, being tempted by the devil.  And he ate nothing during those days.  And when they were ended, he was hungry.  Luke 4:2 ESV

Jesus was forty days in the wilderness without food.  Some days, I can’t go forty minutes without food!

In the wilderness, you discover that there are things that you thought you needed that you may not really have needed.  Much of what we consider necessity is, in fact, luxury.

That’s not to say that food is a luxury, though the way we indulge here in the US would certainly fall in the category of “luxury.”  Food is necessary for life and health.  But you can live for a little while without it.  Apparently, you can live for about forty days without eating.  But you will be hungry.

We tend to think of hunger as being a bad thing.  We avoid getting to the point that we truly feel hungry.  Perhaps, this is what makes us picky eaters and indulgent parents.  It can also make us fat!

But I believe that hunger is actually a very good thing.  It is a feeling that we need to experience.  It is important!  Hunger reminds us of the difference between needs and wants.  It also has the power to develop gratitude in us.

The wilderness brings us to a place of hunger.  

For the descendants of Jacob, the wilderness was the path from Egypt to the Promised Land, from slavery to freedom.  For them, it was a physical wilderness – a place where food and water were scarce.

In the wilderness, there is scarcity.  Scarcity leads to hunger.  And hunger humbles us.

It opens our eyes.

in the wilderness, we find opportunity.  We learn simple, but vital truths that are hard to learn in times of plenty.  

In the wilderness, food is scarce.  For Jesus, it was completely lacking for forty days.  For Him, it wasn’t even DAILY bread in this season.  It was NO bread!

And yet, when tempted to make His own bread, Jesus held fast to His trust in the Father.  He trusted that God would provide in His own way and in His own time, and Jesus did not waver in that trust.

There is a hard and uncomfortable truth in the matter of daily bread that cannot be overlooked.  Before the daily bread, there was hunger.

And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.      Deuteronomy 8:3 ESV

Sometimes, God lets His children go hungry.

This is not something that we like to think about.  It is definitely not something that we want to experience.  And it kind of goes against our modern perspective on God.  

On some level, most of us have bought into the idea that God just wants to bless His children.  While it is true that God wants to bless us, it is also true that we often do not recognize His blessings.  We have created a mental picture of what we think His blessing will look like, but in fact, our mental picture often looks like indulgence - not blessing.  

As we come to understand that God is our Provider, we must be careful that we do not get confused.  Sometimes, God will bring us into seasons of abundance.  Sometimes, though, we will experience seasons of just enough.  Both of these circumstances are evidence of the blessing of God.  And beyond the seasons of “just enough” there may be seasons that seem like “not enough.”  

Blessings sometimes look like roadblocks, closed doors, and even sometimes loss.

And - this is a tough one - sometimes our losses are someone else’s blessings.  Sometimes, we must feel pain so that someone else can experience life.

A few years back, I had a friend whose brother was suffering from advanced kidney failure.  Without a transplant, he would have died.  My friend subjected herself to the pain of surgery to donate a kidney, followed by a long, uncomfortable recovery, all so that her brother could have life.

Jesus Christ submitted Himself to unfathomable pain and suffering and rejection, so that we could have forgiveness of sin and eternal life.  For our blessing, He experienced abandonment by His Father in the most painful moment of His life!

If we genuinely want to follow Christ, we should not expect that things will always go well for us.  And we should not be surprised that God sometimes lets us go hungry for a season.

But He does not let us go hungry forever.  He will not let us starve to death.  It is when we are hungry that we can truly come to understand that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Reflect: Has there been a time when you felt like God was not providing for your needs?  Could it be that what you lack could be the Lord’s means of directing you back to His Word, and calling you to trust in Him alone?

Remember: Hunger helps us understand provision.

Not by Bread Alone

And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”  But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”     Matthew 4:3-4 ESV

At the end of forty days in the wilderness, when he knew Jesus was hungry, the devil came to Jesus with the temptation of provision.  The insinuation here is that the Father was not taking care of Him, so Jesus should just take matters into His own hands, and therefore, the suggestion to turn stones into bread.

So often, this is how the enemy will approach us.  We tend to have a pretty good idea of what we want our lives to look like.  Even in our prayers, we generally know what we want God’s answers to look like before we even ask Him for anything.  So when life does not look exactly the way we think it should, the devil comes and magnifies this for us:

“Didn’t you ask God for such and such?  I don’t see that here, do you?  Maybe you should quit your silly ‘waiting on God’ and just get busy.  You know what to do!”

Sadly, we often listen to the deceiver, and we question God.  

We begin to believe that maybe He didn’t hear us, and we may cry out to Him with the implication that He’s not listening.  And all the while we berate ourselves for our lack of faith.

Or we think that God really doesn’t love us, or we wouldn’t be in this situation.  We think that there is something wrong with ourselves and we may sink into depression.  And so we just stop looking for the answer.

Or we get angry with God, and we believe that we know better.  After all, we told Him what we wanted and we likely even suggested to Him what we thought His answer should look like.  And since He hasn’t come through, we take matters into our own hands and try to turn the stones to bread.

Not surprisingly, Jesus’ approach was different.  Jesus went to Scripture.

When faced with the question of whether His Father would provide, Jesus went back to another wilderness story.  He quoted the words that Moses spoke to the children of Israel before they entered the Promised Land.

And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.  Deuteronomy 8:3 ESV

Jesus understood that His greatest need - even after forty days without eating - was not food.  His greatest need was God!  Knowing God’s Word and trusting God’s Word was as vital to survival as food.  And while the devil wanted Jesus to think that God was not providing, Jesus took the opportunity to remind him why God allows hunger.

God’s track record on caring for the hungry was pretty good.  In fact, over and over in Scripture we see that God provides.  But He wants us to trust Him and not try to take matters into our own hands.  

God provided abundantly for Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.  When they stopped trusting His provision and tried to take matters into their own hands, food became a struggle instead of a gift.

In the wilderness, the children of Israel continually struggled to trust in the Lord’s provision.  And yet, the Lord continually provided for them water and bread as He sought to help them understand His goodness.

When the disciples saw a hungry crowd and thought they needed to come up with a solution, their best idea was to send the people away, or to possibly pool their resources to buy a little food so that maybe everyone could get one bite. God had a better plan.  His plan is always better than ours.  

The temptation will likely always be to try to figure a way out on our own.  But maybe it is time to learn this lesson that God has been trying to teach His people for generations - this lesson that Jesus understood clearly and thus responded to the tempter.  The lesson is simple but profound.  Man does not live by bread alone.

Reflect: What is it that you think you need right now?  Is it possible that the need actually is deeper?  Can you trust that God will provide?

Remember: Man does not live by bread alone.

Through It

[Give thanks] to him who led his people through the wilderness, for his steadfast love endures forever. Psalm 136:16 ESV

When I was teaching preschool, my favorite part of the day was circle time.  Depending on the age of the class I was teaching, our circle often did not look very round…  But that is not the point!

Circle time was a time for silly songs and rhymes and stories.  It was generally fun and filled with giggles, but at the heart of the circle was learning.  Hidden in the songs and stories, important lessons were being taught that would pay dividends in learning for years to come.

A favorite circle time activity was the Bear Hunt.  If you’ve never gone on a bear hunt with a group of preschoolers, you’ve missed a treat!  But in case you’re not familiar with how bears are found, let’s just say that it is not an easy process.  All along the way, obstacles are encountered.  From tall trees, to rivers, to mud pits and tall grass – as we make our way through the imaginary forest in search of bears, we cannot avoid the obstacles.  We must face them head on and deal with them.  

As I walked the path through the imaginary forest with children, we would talk our way through each barrier we faced along the way.  “We can’t go under it.  We can’t go around it.  We’ll have to go through it.”  

And so it is with the wilderness times in life.  These times are challenging, but they are unavoidable.  There is no getting around the wilderness.  You have to go through it.

For real.

We are living in an age where most things can be done virtually.  From church services to school classes to business meetings and job interviews, even doctor’s appointments – all of these activities can now be done from the comfort of your couch at home.  You can even take a virtual vacation to Paris or go sky diving through someone else’s video presentation.

Why not take a “virtual” journey through the wilderness?  We would love a bird’s eye view of the wilderness, all from a safe distance while sipping sweet tea at home.  But the truth is, many of the things that are currently being done virtually really should not be done that way.  There are some things that need to be experienced or observed firsthand.  Things need to be touched, smelled, pushed, pulled, picked up and put down.  

Your wilderness lessons cannot be learned vicariously.

Sure, there are a lot of things that we can learn through the wilderness experiences of others.  The Bible is full of wilderness stories!

Still, if you find yourself in the wilderness, it’s important to recognize that there are specific lessons there just for you.  These things must be experienced BY YOU in order for them to have the right impact.  You can’t go around them; you can’t go under them; you must go through the lessons.

When the Spirit led Jesus to the wilderness, He could have turned and walked out.  He did not.  He submitted Himself to the lessons and experiences that the Father had set before Him.  These forty difficult days of preparation would provide the foundation not only for Christ’s earthly ministry, but for the exercise of our faith these many years later.

As the writer of Hebrews put it, 

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.     Hebrew 2:18 ESV

The Bible tells us that Jesus was TEMPTED in the wilderness.  We don’t get a lot of information about what the first forty days of temptation looked like, other than that Jesus ate no food and was exhausted at the end.  

We do, however, see three specific temptations at the end of the forty days that probably ring familiar with us all.    The three areas on which the devil focused his temptation of Christ are very like the areas in which we find our own faith tested:

Provision, Protection, and Pride.

These three temptations were brought to Jesus at His lowest point, when He was hungry and tired.  

Interestingly, it is a pattern that we see throughout Scripture.  These three themes seem always at the heart of temptation and struggle.  From Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, to the children of Israel on their way to the Promised Land, to the disciples as they walked the earth with Jesus, questions of provision, protection, and pride lie at the very heart of faith and trust in God.

These are the struggles that we will face in the wilderness.  As we look at how Jesus responded to these temptations and as we see in the Scriptures how the Lord brought others through these same struggles, we have the opportunity to build a foundation from which to fight these battles in our own wilderness days.

But we can’t go around the wilderness.  We’ll have to go through it.

Reflect: Which of the three temptations would you identify as the greatest struggle for you personally?

Remember: You can’t go around the wilderness.

Someday Is Today

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.  For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold  our original confidence firm to the end.  As it is said,“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”      Hebrews 3:13-15 ESV

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.  Ecclesiastes 9:10 ESV

I went out for a walk with Bailey yesterday evening.

It was a dual-purpose walk.  It was about the right time for her usual evening walk, so there was that... More importantly in the moment, though, it was a respectable means of procrastinating.

I have multiple projects started - writing projects, crafting projects, cleaning, organizing, reading, etc.  But I really struggle with finishing.  Finishing is just hard for me!

Yesterday I was feeling weary.  That's not really unusual at all.  And there was no good reason for it.  But I just felt tired.  I had already pretty much resigned myself to heading to bed early and trying again tomorrow to get something done.

But then the critical question came to mind...

What am I waiting for?

Initially, I answered myself with, "I'm waiting until I have more energy.  I'm just tired today."

But that was a pretty poor answer.  Before I even finished the thought, I knew that was not the right answer.

More energy? That's a good one, right? I'm fifty-four years old!  Do I think I'm going to magically turn into an energetic young person someday?!?!  

So as Bailey and I walked, I contemplated.

What AM I waiting for?  I've made up many bad answers to that question over the years...

I'm waiting until I'm older.

I'll do it after I finish high school.

I'll get to it after college.

I've got too much going on right now.

After I'm married, then I'll be able to.

When the kids are out of diapers, when they're napping, when they're more independent, then I'll be able to get things done.

I'm waiting until we get off the road and settle down.

When we get out of the bus and have a real house, then I'll be more productive.

Let me finish homeschooling the kids, and then I'll have time.

If I didn't have a house full of kids...

If I didn't have to work such long hours...

If I just had a little time to myself...

Someday...

So many excuses! Wow!

Clearly, I've been waiting my whole life! But for what?

What am I STILL waiting for?

Someday?

Someday, maybe all the planets will line up, and all of the bills will be paid off, and everyone in my life will be happy, healthy, and secure, and I'll be living in a nice big house with dedicated workspace and a proper desk and craft table, and then maybe, finally, at long last, I will sit down, focused, undistracted, and ready to write, create, and finish these projects.  

Someday, I'll get to it.

Or perhaps someday is today.

The time and energy and circumstances that I have are the time, energy, and circumstances that I have. It's not really complicated.

So it's high time I got busy!

I'm not getting any younger.

My SOMEDAY is TODAY!

Maybe I can't get all of the someday projects accomplished in a single day, but I can make progress on at least one of them.  I'm done waiting around.

How about you?  What is your "someday" project or plan?  

Maybe your someday is today, too.

...Just a thought...

Led by the Spirit

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  Matthew 4:1 ESV

My heart always goes out to the families of sick children.  Just the thought of taking a small child by the hand and walking him into a hospital or clinic where he will be stuck, poked, or possibly face surgery…  My heart just breaks for those precious little ones and their parents.  How hard it must be for a mom to put on a brave face as she leads her child into a place where she knows hard and painful things are about to happen!

Scripture tells us that Jesus was “led by the Spirit” into the wilderness.

I don’t pretend to understand the Trinity.  I know that God exists in three Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  I know that the relationship between them is close and unique.

So, when the Bible says that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, I find that significant.

In Matthew 3, we’ve just read about the baptism of Jesus.  In that experience, all three Persons of the Trinity were individually present and identified.  Jesus was baptized, the Spirit came as a dove and rested on Jesus, and the Father spoke audibly from heaven.

Then in the very next verse in Scripture, we see the Spirit lead Jesus into the wilderness.

Was what happened at Jesus’ baptism a sort of “family reunion?”  We really don’t know much about those thirty years since Jesus was born in a stable.  We cannot understand how the incarnation of Christ has impacted the relationship of the Trinity.

But at the baptism, the Father expressed His approval of the Son, and the Spirit came to hang out with Jesus for a bit.  And then, the very next thing the Spirit does is lead Jesus to a place of trouble.

I can imagine that this must have been hard for Jesus.  He was God, so He must have known what was getting ready to happen.  Since He was God, He knew what was necessary.  Why not just walk Himself into the wilderness?

I can speculate – and that’s all it is, speculation – but I can imagine that even though the wilderness was necessary, it wasn’t something that Jesus wanted to do.  Keep in mind that though He was God, Jesus was also human, and forty days of temptation doesn’t exactly sound pleasant.  We have the story of Gethsemane where we see Christ’s humanity revealed in the dread of the cross.  I wonder if Jesus was having similar feelings about the wilderness?

So the Spirit went with Jesus.  

He led Him into the wilderness.  

Jesus did not have to walk that difficult path alone.

As Christ-followers, we have a help in the wilderness – the indwelling Holy Spirit.  The same Spirit that led Jesus into the wilderness, has gone into the wilderness with us.  The Spirit doesn’t leave us – He remains. 

We may not know what is getting ready to happen in the wilderness, or perhaps we might have some idea of what lies ahead.  We know enough to know that it will probably be hard.  There’s a good chance that it will involve pain of some kind.  

A warm-up before an intense workout is painful, but vital.  Though the stretching may be uncomfortable in the moment, it can prevent a serious injury later on.  So we do the stretching.

Medical procedures, surgeries, and therapies all can be useful treatments to correct a problem.   The path to your healing can be painful, but we face these challenges head-on because we understand they are for our good.  Sometimes, we have to be talked into doing the hard things.  We may need someone to take us by the hand and walk with us into the difficult place. 

The wilderness does not feel good in the moment.  It is for our good, though, so we must fight the inclination to resist.  Take the Comforter by the hand and move forward.

Let that be an encouragement today.  That same Spirit that led Jesus into the wilderness goes with you and stays with you.  

You are not alone.

Reflect: Think for just a moment of something difficult that you have gone through in the past, whether an illness, an injury, or a loss.  Recognize that if you are reading these words, it means that you have survived!  

Remember: The wilderness will be hard, but you don’t have to go there alone.

No Mistake

The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.      Mark 1:12 ESV

The wilderness.

It’s where you end up when you’ve made a wrong turn and find yourself miserably lost, right?  

Apparently not.

If the Scriptures are true – and we know that they are – then we can clearly see that ending up in the wilderness does not indicate that you have made a mistake.  Jesus went to the wilderness, and we know that He never made a mistake EVER.

Our tendency is to think that when we’ve hit hard times, we must have done something wrong.  We replay scenarios in our heads, trying to find our mistake, and looking for some way to make a correction that will get us out of the wilderness.  The problem with that line of thinking is that it can take us in the opposite direction of where we need to be.

In fact, there’s a pretty good chance that if you find yourself in the wilderness, you are exactly where you are supposed to be.

That’s probably not the kind of encouragement you were looking for today.  When I’m in the wilderness, I’m generally looking for a way out.  Perhaps you are, too.

I would charge you to be very careful!  Trying to find your own way out of the wilderness can be dangerous.  There are hazards along the way.  Even if you think that you have an excellent sense of direction, it can be easy to get lost in the wilderness.  You get disoriented.  Everything begins to look the same, and it can be hard to distinguish where you’re headed from where you’ve been.

I remember watching an old TV show where a couple went hiking.  They were trying to stay on the trail, but having lost their sense of direction, the two soon found themselves walking in circles.  An argument naturally ensued, as tends to happen when couples get lost, and while one remained level-headed, the other panicked, and presumed himself much more lost than he really was.  The wife calmly and methodically found her way back to civilization, while the husband went full-on “survival” mode, working his way deeper into the forest.  

While we can watch in amusement as this story plays out on TV, these are two very real responses to the wilderness.  Calmness can show us the way, while panic may leave us lost.  We can fight the wilderness, or we can acknowledge it.

When Jesus found Himself in the wilderness, it was no accident.  Mark tells us that the Spirit “drove him out into the wilderness.”  Matthew and Luke say that the Spirit “led” Christ into the wilderness.  Whichever gospel account you read, one thing is clear – Jesus did not CHOOSE the wilderness.  He simply went where He was sent.

This kind of simple obedience is so difficult for us, but it is necessary if we desire to truly be Christ-followers.

My own natural tendency is to resist the wilderness.  I’m more likely to dig in my heels and try to put on the brakes than to go along willingly when I see myself heading in that direction.  Maybe that’s why I spend so much time there…  

You see, the wilderness is a place of preparation.  It’s where lessons are learned and where endurance is developed.  It’s where you discover the difference between needs and wants. 

If you never go to the wilderness, you’ll never get to experience what lies beyond.  If you leave the wilderness too soon, you won’t be adequately prepared for what lies ahead.

So the challenge today is to embrace it!  Do not resist.

The wilderness is coming.  Or perhaps, you’re already there.  Allow me to encourage you today – you can survive this.  It seems big, and difficult, and maybe even a bit scary.  And it probably hurts a little… or a lot!  But it doesn’t mean that you’ve done the wrong thing or that you’ve gone the wrong way.  It means that God loves you, and He’s chosen you, and there are things He has for you in the future that you’re not quite ready for.  He wants you to be ready.  He’s not going to send you to that next challenge until He has developed in you the skills you will need to succeed.

So do the work.

Learn the lessons.

Commit to the hard training.  You’re going to need it!

Reflect: What hard thing are you resisting?  Is it possible that your fear is keeping you off the path that will ultimately lead to purpose and blessing?

Remember: Finding yourself in the wilderness does not mean that you made a wrong turn.

What? No Party?

And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  Mark 1:11 ESV  

Jesus has just been baptized.  The time has come for Him to begin His public ministry.  Sounds like cause for celebration, if you ask me.

I guess that’s why God doesn’t ask my opinions!  While I would have thrown a party for Jesus, He had a different plan:

The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.      Mark 1:12 ESV

Occasions, accomplishments, victories…  We tend to think of these as reasons to celebrate.  As often is the case, God sees things a bit differently.  We see the immediate; God sees the short-term, long-term, eternal, and the immediate.  He has a much bigger perspective on things.

Looking from God’s “big picture” perspective, there was no time for celebration.  Jesus was going to face an intense three years of public ministry.  It was vital that He be ready.  And since the wilderness is the place where learning and growth occur, God sent Jesus to “school.”  

I never really did like school.  Perhaps that is why I dislike the wilderness so much!  I found school to be tedious, at best, and torturous, at times.  It’s not that the work was too difficult.  I just didn’t like the setting.

A lot of attention is given these days to “learning styles.”  The theory is that different people learn better in different ways.  I happen to learn just fine by reading text and hearing lectures, so as a kid, I may have lacked patience for my classmates who needed more and longer explanations and demonstrations to grasp what, to me, were simple concepts.  I just wanted to hurry and get the work done so that I could move on to more pleasant activities – like reading a book just for fun.

So I didn’t like school very much.  But, fortunately, I had parents who made me go anyway.  What to me seemed a tedious waste of my time, my parents understood was vital preparation for my future.  And so they made me go where I did not want to go.

Fully God, it wasn’t that Christ had anything to learn.  He already knew everything.  But Christ was also fully human, and there were things about the human experience that He had not yet gone through – things that would prepare Him for what lay ahead.  

These are the experiences that would lay the groundwork for Scripture not yet written, such as Hebrews 2:17 where we read that “he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest…”

Because God knew that we would face the wilderness, it was necessary that His Son face the wilderness as well.

And so, rather than a celebratory send-off into His next phase of ministry, Jesus got a little push into the wilderness.  Instead of a nugget tray from Chick-fil-A, Jesus got a forty-day fast.

We don’t know much about Jesus’ early life.  We know that at twelve, He was a bright and obedient son to Mary and Joseph.  We never hear about Joseph after that, so we can gather that it is likely that Jesus suffered the loss of His earthly father at a fairly young age.  As the firstborn, Jesus probably handled the family business and looked after Mary.  But now the time had come for Him to take His place in the other Family business.

And so He went into the wilderness to be about His Father’s business.

This was a different side of the “business” than Jesus had seen prior to His incarnation.  Thirty years earlier, Christ had humbled Himself in ways hard for us to fathom.  He gave up the glory of Heaven, and went from all-powerful deity to helpless baby – from being able to do absolutely anything, to being able to do absolutely nothing for Himself.  He submitted Himself to the authority of earthly, flawed parents, who – technically – He had created.  He faced all of the struggles of childhood – the bumps, bruises, and skinned knees, possibly taunting from a mean kid…  He’s been a teenager and dealt with the frustrations of that age.  And now, when it’s finally time to go public with His true identity, it’s time for more humbling.  He’s headed to the wilderness.

He could have turned around and walked right back out of the wilderness.  I think I might have.  But He didn’t.  He trusted His Father.  He knew that if God sent Him there, it was for good reason.

This is the hard thing for us to grasp.  The wilderness is for our good.

But it doesn’t feel good.  It feels awful!

We would not choose the wilderness for ourselves because it is hard.  Often, it is unpleasant, as wee; but always it is hard. 

We want God to take us out of the wilderness – to rescue us.  But that is not what we need. 

What we need is to learn.

Ready

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  Matthew 4:1 ESV

I often feel that the wilderness is just where I’m going to spend my whole life.  This frustrates me.  I don’t particularly like the wilderness.

When I think of the wilderness, visions of a dry, barren desert come to mind.  I suppose a forest or jungle could also be considered wilderness.  Either way, it’s the idea of a place that is undeveloped, untamed, and wild.

In the wilderness, everything, it seems, is a struggle.  Nothing comes easily.  Food must be foraged, hunted, or scavenged.  Even then, sometimes that which looks good to eat or drink actually is not.

The wilderness is a place of danger.  You must always be on your guard.  Wild animals lurk, waiting to attack.  You are at the mercy of nature and the elements.  If it is cold, warmth is hard to find.  If it is hot, shade may be difficult to come by.  In rain or snow, shelter is not readily available.

Life in the wilderness requires knowledge, wisdom, and tenacity.

By definition, the wilderness is a place of struggle.

But the wilderness can also be a place of great beauty.

Even freedom.  

It is a place where lessons are learned, skills are developed, and muscles are strengthened.

Or, it is where you die.

Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days.  The Bible doesn’t tell us a lot about those days.  We are told that Christ fasted for forty days.  Scripture also tells us that Jesus was tempted by the devil for those forty days, but we are not told what that temptation looked like.  Matthew and Luke relate to us three specific interactions that came at the very end of the forty days, but we don’t know about all that led up to those moments.

What we do know is that at the end of those forty difficult days, Jesus was still living.  He had not given up, or given in.  He was tired, but He had survived.  And, perhaps most importantly, after a brief time of recovery, He was ready.

As we begin our journey into the wilderness, it is important that we do so with our eyes open to some basic facts:

The wilderness will be hard.  

It will likely bring some pain.  

There will be unpleasantness.

Beyond the wilderness, there will be some time for recovery, but there will also be challenges.  You may find opportunities you never dared to dream of!

What lies beyond the wilderness is beyond your current qualifications.  It’s “above your pay grade,” so to speak.  It’s not that there’s something wrong with you.  You’re just not ready.

If God were to present you with that future today, you would likely cower in fear.  Or perhaps, you would run away.  You might look at the challenge and deem it impossible.

Perhaps not.  Maybe you’re a “go-getter” and love the idea of a challenge.  Perhaps you would attack the opportunity head-on with great zeal.  The outcome you might achieve will be so much less than what might have been had you waited on God.

You see, the wilderness is for preparation.  As your first-grade self would not have scored well on an algebra exam, pre-wilderness you is just not yet ready for post-wilderness challenges.  It’s okay.  You’re not supposed to be ready.  

A few years ago, I got the notion that I would like to run a half-marathon.  That’s 13.1 miles!  I’m not really sure what inspired me to want to do such a thing, having run a total of TWO 5ks in my life, both several years prior.  Even in my youth, I’m not sure I’d ever run more than three or four miles in any given day.  But, experience and ability aside, I paid my entry fee and signed up to run my first half-marathon.

Thankfully, the race was about ten months out.  I had a lot of work to do to be ready!  

Suppose, though, that I got up one morning, heard that there was a half marathon happening down the road, and decided to go run it.  With no experience and no preparation, there is little chance that I could have completed the race.  And there is a high possibility that I could have seriously injured myself trying.

Months of workouts and training runs were necessary for me to get ready for my race.  I did research, read articles, talked to people who had run long distances.  I started with very slow running at very short distances, gradually working my way up to slightly less slow running and increasingly longer distances.  Having gone through the preparation, when race day arrived, I felt as ready as I could be.  It was incredibly hard, but I completed it!

The wilderness is your training season.  Challenges are coming that you are not presently able to handle.  Times of rest and blessing lie beyond the wilderness, but first there is work to be done.  Don’t waste your energy trying to get comfortable.  Just focus on the task at hand.  Get ready!

On the Way

Now there are also many other things that Jesus did.  Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.  John 21:25

 This is how John closed out his Gospel.

We really don’t know very much about Jesus’s first thirty years on earth.  We know a little bit about a baby in a manger, the trip to Jerusalem when Jesus was twelve, and that’s pretty much it.  The next thing we read is that adult Jesus comes to be baptized by John.  

From that point, there were 40 critical days that followed.  These were the days which immediately preceded the commencement of Christ’s earthly ministry.  These were important days of preparation, but they were not enjoyable days for Him.  They were hard days.  

Most of us are familiar with hard days.  Perhaps, you’re in a season of life where all of the days feel hard.  You may be frustrated, confused, or simply lacking direction.

I invite you to journey with me and explore those “in-between” days that Jesus spent in the wilderness.  He had left home and set out to start His earthly ministry, but he hadn’t arrived yet.  On His way to do what He was made to do, the Holy Spirit took Jesus on what we might consider a detour.  This was not, in fact, a detour.  He wasn’t going out of His way.  This experience was ON the way.  And the way led straight through the wilderness.

My prayer is that as we explore these forty days with Christ in the wilderness, we will find insight and understanding to apply to our own lives.  If God did not shelter His own Son from the wilderness but in fact led Him there, clearly the wilderness is a necessary experience.  We may not like the wilderness, but we will experience it, if we desire to follow Christ.

Whatever it is that God is calling you to do, whatever the dream may be, whatever it is that you are hoping for…  Whatever it is, there is a pretty good chance that the path from here to there is going to lead you through the wilderness.

And so we have a choice.  We can stay right where we are, in our familiar - but possibly frustrating - present circumstances.  Or, we can set our sights on the limitless future our Eternal Father has set before us, and prepare ourselves for a life of impact – beyond the wilderness.

...Just a thought...

The Next Thing

And the manna ceased the day after they ate off the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate off the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.     Joshua 5:12 ESV

Maybe it's just me...

I have this tendency to think that if I can just hang on through the current struggles, what comes next is going to be so much easier, so much better.  I just have to hang on a little longer, and I'll eventually reach the Promised Land!

It's not until I reach the Promised Land, though, that I bother to consider what the Promised Land actually looks like...

In my mind, the Promised Land looked like rest and peace and butterflies and roses.  I envisioned ease and abundance and circumstances that would just magically fall into place.  What I was dreaming of was not, in fact, the Promised Land.  It was Fantasyland!

The children of Israel wandered for forty years in the wilderness.  During those years, all they could see was the wilderness.  They saw scarcity and struggle.  They wallowed in misery and felt they were in want.

The reality was that the wilderness was not really scarcity.  It was school.  In truth, they would never again see the Lord's provision so clearly as was demonstrated for them in the wilderness.  Manna - daily bread - established foundations for a faith in the God who is constant.  Water from the rock demonstrated the power of the God who saw their needs and who was capable of meeting those needs, moment by moment.

When the Israelites crossed the Jordan River to enter the land of Canaan - the Promised Land - they did find abundance.  They also found work.  There were battles to be fought.  Though God was giving them the land, they would have to fight to actually take possession of it.  There were still giants in the land, and it would be generations before the giants were conquered.

It's kind of like when we were kids in school...

For me, at least, I was always looking for the next thing.  In kindergarten, first grade looked great.  In elementary school, the thought of middle school seemed exciting.  Then middle school was just about getting ready for high school, which was going to be amazing! Obviously, high school was great because that's how it looked in all the movies!  

But then I got to high school, and it was not amazing.  It was work.  And it was miserable.  And all I wanted was to get finished with high school so I could be free to go live my life.

And so the process continued.  And it continues...

Like I said at the beginning, maybe it's just me...

What I'm finding is that life is always a process.  I'm constantly looking to what's next.  It seems like whenever I finally get "there," I find myself "here," and "there" has moved.  And while that is certainly the realistic view, I'm feeling that it's time to stop striving to get "there" and start learning to experience and enjoy "here."

Maybe you're still in the wilderness.  Maybe you've reached the Promised Land.  Maybe it doesn't even matter.  Is one really so different from the other?

Wherever you may find yourself today, take a little lesson from the sneaker brand and "just do it."  That's what I'm going to try to do today!

...Just a thought...