The Blessings of a God Prepared Wilderness
The wilderness experience is very much God-planned my friends! God-initiated!
We will normally be well into a wilderness experience before we are actually awake and fully aware to know that we are there, in the thick of it! It’s all part of God’s design.
If you knew you were about to enter the wilderness, you (and I) would most likely want to delay it by a few days, weeks, months, or years!
So…how do you know when you are in the wilderness or in a type of “aloneness” that has been prepared by God?
This next little tidbit from the book “Sweetly Broken” by Moses Asamoah says some wonderful things and has quite the insight about a “God Prepared Wilderness”. SO Helpful!!
He shares three interesting insights or “indications” of a God-initiated wilderness experience.
INDICATOR #1
“The people who used to understand you no longer do.
What is the purpose of it?
At the end of the wilderness, you will have a renewed vision and a new group of people (eagles) to help you accomplish it.
That is how it is with your wilderness. Those who thought they had you figured out soon realize they don’t.
Please note that this will frustrate and irritate them, but you must continue to obey God.
“If you want to grow in wisdom, spend time with the wise. Walk with the wicked, and you’ll eventually become just like them,” Proverbs 13: 20 TPT.”
INDICATOR #2
“The activities that used to be fun and pleasurable fade away.
What is the purpose of it?
A change of appetite comes with the wilderness package. A hunger and thirst for God alone is needed to deliver God’s gift to you.
“Blessed and fortunate and happy and spiritually prosperous are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God), for they shall be completely satisfied!” Matthew 5:6 AMP.”
INDICATOR #3
“Your weaknesses and character flaws become glaringly obvious to you. (OH MY!)
What is the purpose of it?
A higher level of character is required for the new level of anointing. God will expose you to yourself so you can humble yourself to Him and be repaired.
“Blessed is the man whom god corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty,” Job 5:17.
The wilderness experience is continual…
Because we are all a work in progress!
It’s not only spiritual, it is physical, emotional, social, and in every area of our lives.
To walk with God, we will constantly need a personal makeover! Expect it, embrace it, and enjoy it.”
God often takes us to hard places to create new people who learn to trust Him like never before. This happened with all the great men and women of the Bible.
Think of how Paul was in prison. What good could possibly come out of that? In prison Paul wrote Philippians, the book of joy. What In Prison? Yes indeed!
And while he was in there, Paul was used to share the Gospel of Jesus with the household of Caesar! He was in a hard, HARD location, to learn a new vocation.
Look at what that word “vocation” means,
Vocation: Calling, employment occupation, profession, trade, work
The LORD uses people who may seem totally different to help us place our faith (trust) in God!
Maybe God is using a person or people in your life to shake up your personal world today!
Listen to the unlikely voices, the closest voices, and you may be listening to the voice of God.
You may be living in a hard place, but god is preparing you for a new opportunity or assignment. Jesus has been there and is with you and I now.
Wilderness experiences don’t always have to be a time of trial and pain. In fact, they might be an oasis from some form of abuse.
Wilderness experiences can be a time of transformation as a result from the quiet and solitude of the wilderness. It’s there where we make room for God to speak.
In God’s Word, it shows that he always takes advantage of these situations, transforming us through drawing us into a relationship with him.
“I will rejoice and be glad in your faithful love, because you have seen my affliction. You know the troubles of my soul,” Psalm 31:7.
You might be traveling on a road that feels bumpy, in a place that “feels” far away from God. But that’s where God is. God is in the far away places of our lives.
Here is proof!
“It was I (The LORD) who established the relationship with you in the wilderness, I who looked after you in that parched and weary land,” Hosea 13:5.
He is there when you see him and when you don’t.
He is sometimes seen most clearly in the darkness of life. And if this true, we learn to trust God best on the far side of the wilderness, and Jesus has been there and is with you now.
“If you know the wilderness in the way that you know love,
You would be unwilling to let it go….
This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future.”
~ Terry Tempest Williams.
In His Shadow,
~ Mary Lindow ©
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” THE MESSENGER ” ~ Mary Lindow
www.marylindow.com
Global Prayer Rooms
Mary Lindow has a passion for encouraging others – all generations, careers or vocations to live expressing excellence through personal integrity, healthy accountability, and wise management of talents and skills. She’s a sought after keynote, inspirational, humorous speaker and teacher across the USA and internationally in Ministers & Spiritual leaders Conferences, and training seminars for various organizations.
I desperately need prayer, please. I’ve been sifted, falsely imprisoned and thrown in the pit. It’s been a wilderness experience, for sure. I’ve tried to remain strong but between the Jezebel spirit, witchcraft, Python and the spirit of Death…I’ve barely hung onto life through it all.
I’ve been waiting for the Lord’s promise that He’s sending older, stronger eagles to come surround me and lift me up.
I’ve been all by myself for months with no phone or car or job/income or food…No heat during winter, no running water or toilet facilities… No one to talk to about the things of the Lord And unable to get to my church 40 miles away!
I’ve been so lonely. I need strength. I need deliverance from whatever blocks me from believing the Lord loves me and that I’ll make heaven.
I know, at least in part, the destiny God has set before me…but I’m weary and losing hope…and feel unworthy anyway. Then the Spirit revealed my “good friend” who was allowing me to live in her RV, is a practicing witch and using it against me. Then last night, she kicked me out!
I came to the gas station to use Wi-Fi. I have nowhere to go and nowhere to store my belongings. I’m in North Idaho and it’s already cold here at night. I found a tent at the dumpster but can’t imagine I’ll survive winter in it in the forest.
I’m just at a complete loss. And I don’t want to disappoint the Lord or myself. But i no longer see the way ahead. I just need to feel like I’m not so doggone alone in this world.
Wonderful. Thank you.
Thank you Mary, for this encouraging word.
Blessings always,
Dawn