Your Wilderness Is Bigger Than You!نموونە

Everyone has lost their keys or phone at some point. We’ve asked a friend or family member to call our phone. We’ve torn apart the house looking for our car keys. On several instances, I’ve been shocked when I finally locate my lost item, exclaiming, “How on earth did you get here?!”

As I retrace my steps, I discover how I left that item where I did, but truthfully, that was the unlikeliest of spots where I would have looked.

The wilderness is often a place where we are surprised. In this instance, we find God where we least expected Him to be. Throughout the Bible, we read about men and women encountering God in surprising places.

One of those people is Jacob. In Genesis 28:10-17, Jacob goes to sleep on his journey of running away from his brother Esau after tricking their father Isaac out of Esau’s blessing.

While sleeping, Jacob dreams of seeing a beautiful vision of a stairway to heaven. Later, God promises Jacob that He will bless his descendants and be present with Jacob. Jacob wakes from his dream and declares, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” We often categorize places into two categories: where God is present and where God is absent. Only later are we surprised when God shows up where we never planned for Him to be.

The first essential truth I want to share with you in this plan is that you will encounter God in the wilderness. You may have declared that your current wilderness is barren and devoid of God’s presence. You may feel thousands of miles from God, and He may feel like He couldn’t be further away. But God has a way of popping up where we least expect Him.

When our family made a significant move eight years ago, I began dealing with anxiety and panic attacks for the first time. Though I didn’t know the words “panic attack” back then, I knew the feeling of a racing heart, anxious thoughts, and an inability to stop one of the worst feelings I’ve ever known.

My wife and I made a unified choice to make this move. We felt like this was what God wanted us to do. He had provided jobs for us both in this new city. We were moving into our first house as a married couple. A place had opened up for our kids to go to preschool. Everything seemed like confirmation until I couldn’t sleep or control my body.

I would pray to God each night, crying to Him for relief. “Please make this stop!” I don’t know how I functioned on so little sleep, but I did. Like the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, I told God to take this “thorn” away. God did not take it away. Looking back, I now see how God’s strength sustained me. I see how His grace was sufficient for me. I see how my weakness forced me to lean on His strength in prayer and be vulnerable with the people around me regarding my current experience.

You need to know that your wilderness is bigger than you because God is present here. Things are happening here, right where you are today, that you aren’t expecting and can’t comprehend now. In the same way that a seed is planted and then begins germinating underground before popping through the surface, God’s work often happens in unseen places and in unknown ways. We now declare, “God isn’t doing anything!” Later, we discover that God was doing far more than we imagined and at work in ways we did not comprehend.

Your wilderness is bigger than you. You are not aware of all God is doing. So, don’t give up, and don’t write this place off. God is present and at work right where you are today!

Tomorrow, we will examine how God will use what happens in your wilderness.