Get Me Out of the Wilderness!Sýnishorn

When you end up in the wilderness, what’s your natural response?

For many of us, we resist it. We cry out to God, “make it stop!” When it doesn’t stop, we even face the temptation to become bitter at God and resent the wilderness.

I stumbled into my own wilderness several years ago. In the middle of a big move, I began having panic attacks. These lasted for several weeks. Eventually, though, they began to subside.

However, they weren’t just a temporary experience tied to a life transition. They’ve returned on several occasions in the years since. Whenever they come back, I tend to start by crying out to God for relief. I don’t want to be in the wilderness of anxiety and panic - anywhere but here!

Because this has been my default attitude, I found John the Baptist’s response to his wilderness to be shocking and uncomfortable. In Luke 1:80, I read, “John grew up and became strong in spirit. And he lived in the wilderness until he began his public ministry to Israel.” John apparently spent a long time in the wilderness.

Matthew 3 tells us that John went so far in embracing the wilderness that it transformed his clothes and diet. “John’s clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food he ate locusts and wild honey.” It was there in the wilderness that John heard the message from the Lord which he began preaching until Jesus came to him and requested to be baptized.

The wilderness not only prepared John for his purpose; it also transformed John into the person who could step into that purpose. When asked about his own identity, Jesus began by talking about John’s character. “What kind of man did you go into the wilderness to see? Was he a weak reed, swayed by every breath of wind?”

The lesson we learn from John’s experience can be summed up by the motto of The Wilderness Collective. “The wilderness makes you better.”

The wilderness can transform us into a better version of ourselves - stronger, more resilient, less vulnerable to compromise, and flexible enough to flourish in adverse circumstances.

Yet we only get better in the wilderness when we resist the temptation to bitterness and resentment. Wilderness makes us better when we stop praying “make it stop” and we start praying “make me who I need to become.” Now, that’s a scary prayer!

You may never be ready to eat locusts, nor wear camel hair. But, what if your story was one day told like John’s? “A message came to me when I was living in the wilderness.” Or “I remained in the wilderness until I began the ministry God had for me.”

What if the wilderness made you a better follower of Jesus? A better friend? A better spouse or parent? A better listener? A better worker?

As amazing as John’s emergence from the wilderness, and as great as his preaching was in preparing the way for the Messiah, Jesus seems to think you and I are capable of more.

“I tell you, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John. Yet even the least person in the Kingdom of God is greater than he is!”

Those words have always sobered me. They remind me of the transformation Jesus can do in me and the potential He sees in me. The same is true for you!

The truth is, the wilderness doesn’t make some people better. Wilderness actually makes them bitter - they kick against it and resist the gifts it offers them. They miss out on what God might do only there. Who knows who they might have become and what they might have accomplished?

The wilderness makes other people better - they stop kicking and surrender to God in its confines. They discover an intimacy with God and a transformation within themselves, which resets the trajectory of their lives.

The wilderness is going to change us. So, will we leave bitter? Or will we leave better?

**I'm so grateful that I've gone on this journey with you. Tomorrow, as we wrap up our final day, we'll step back and consider how what happens in our wilderness might impact others. Who knows - maybe what God is doing here is much bigger than we've imagined?