The Wilderness Season

     What is the wilderness season of a Christian? When a Christian goes through a wilderness season within their lifetime it will be a time of change for him. It maybe a time of hardship and sadness. It is a time of mental confusion and uncertainty. We will not be able to clearly see to where we must go to find our way out.  It will be a time when our trust and faith in God will be tested. We are in this spiritual and emotional state of mind to learn to trust in God with our whole mind and soul. We will learn to have total faith in God to lead us through the wilderness. In this wilderness, God is preparing us to what we need to be, so to go further in our worship of him. In the the wilderness, Satan will be there to test us and try to break our trust and our faith in God. In the wilderness we will come to know more of ourselves and our relationship to God.
     How do you enter into the wilderness season? There could be many different reasons to how you enter the wilderness season. Your problems that you had might have led you into a spiritual and emotional wilderness. Your problems could have been spiritual, financial, poor health and even a lost of someone that you loved. It could of been when a certain circumstance happened in your life and you felt like that you were lost and alone. You needed help and guidance to find your way out. You may have felt broken and shattered in many pieces. You felt that you needed someone to put you back together again. The wilderness is about being broken down and being built back up again by the spirit of God.
     Another way you may have enter the wilderness, when you become ready to make a change in your life. You may have become so tired of the way you were living your life. You eventually start to feel that you are lost and alone in a wilderness that you do not know how to leave. At this point in your life, you are willing to let God take control and lead you through the wilderness so to teach you and train you. In this hardship he will guide you and remake you with his words. He will change you according to his will. He will show you that to go further into your worship of him, you must be more dependent upon him. God will train you to become someone with a strong faith and a strong determination to serve him as he wants you to.
   Even though Jesus went into a physical wilderness rather than a spiritual and emotional one, we can still learn from his example how he resisted the devil and did not break his reliance on God. Matthew 4:1-4 "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 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." Jesus had complete trust in God that he would provide what he needed. Even though Jesus was hungry, he did not break his trust in God by doing what the devil wanted.
     The Israelites wander a wilderness for forty years as punishment from God. The people of Israel constantly complained about God to Moses and Aaron even after being delivered out of Egypt and seeing first hand all the miracles that God had done. Numbers 14:2-3 "Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, "Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt." Numbers 14:11 "And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? The Lord went on to say in Numbers 14:22-23 that none of the men who saw the signs that he did in Egypt and in the wilderness shall see the land that he swore to give to their fathers.
     In the wilderness, the LORD did not abandon the people of Israel but he lead them to where they were to go. He was also testing, teaching and training them to be humble and obedient. He showed them that he could be trusted and they could depend upon him. Deuteronomy 8:2-5 "And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 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. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you." When it was time, the LORD lead the Israelites out of the wilderness and he rewarded them the land that he swore to give to their fathers.
     In our own wilderness season the LORD will lead us. Joshua 1:9 "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go." In our hardships and troubles he will be there helping us through them. In our wilderness, he we lead us out of it when it is time. Meaning when we learn what we need to learn. He will test you to know what is in your heart. He will humble you so that you will learn to be more dependent upon him. Moses said that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. The LORD loves us and disciplines us so that we will be doing what we need to be doing so to please him as his loving children. 
     When it is time for us to leave the wilderness, we to will be just like the Israelites tested, humbled and trained by God to be obedient sons and daughters. We will be changed from what we were. Our minds will be clear to the direction that we must go. We will be ready to serve and to do the will of God. In time we to will be rewarded when the Son of God returns and welcomes us into his kingdom.

2 Corinthians 4:8-10 "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies."