THE FOUR
PHASES OF THE WILDERNESS
Anonymous
In this…article, I would
like to show you that periods of involuntary isolation are usually divided into
four stages. It can be helpful to precisely identify them, so that we have hope
and perspective of what we should feel and do.
Stripping and Breaking
We are typically led into
desert times by surprise, or by...progressive shocks that get us deeper and
deeper down into what seems like "the valley of the shadow of death".
Positions, possessions or securities
are usually lost in a way that we never expected, such that shame, anger and
confusion are feelings which are not uncommon at this early stage. There can be
various painful means that force us to enter desert times: a severe sickness...
the loss of someone or a secure job, or even persecution...
One way that makes it
particularly painful and confusing is after we did something righteous, we end
up being treated unfairly. For instance we wanted to improve things within our
church, our job or our family, and we end up being criticized, misunderstood or
even rejected. Moses, for example, tried
to do something for God and he got "rewarded" with the unfair
treatment of being led into a long desert time.
The same happened to Elijah after he spoke to Ahab, as well as Joseph
when he shared his dream.
Struggling to Find God and Ourselves
The second phase
determines whether we simply have a life crisis that will eventually pass, or
we have entered a desert time.
The way to find out is
through the following 3 signs:
1.
The first one is
that after spending enough time to forcefully change our situation, with every
possible wisdom and discipline, we eventually realize that we are
"stuck". Nothing has really changed, and we have absolutely no
perspective of when it will ever finish. We have been put aside, isolated, most
people cannot really relate to what is happening to us, and our professional
situation is definitively not what we had chosen. Worse, we start to have this
nagging feeling that God Himself had a plan to bring us into this dry and
isolate place where no one will want to join us (isn't that what deserts are?).
As it is written: "the Spirit led Jesus into the desert" (Matt. 4:1).
2.
The second sign
of a desert is that we are being tested in how we see ourselves. For instance,
the three times that Jesus was tempted in the desert always had to do with his
identity ("if you are truly the Son of God...."). The reason that we
go through an identity crisis is that before we entered our desert time, our
whole person was tied and shaped by an environment and responsibility; once
those have been removed, we have a hard time to know
who we are.
3.
The third and
most evident characteristic that we have entered a desert time is the confusing
feeling that God is somehow silent. He
does not seem to hear our prayers, and worse, we cannot really recognize His
familiar voice. In the worst cases, some Christians start to even battle with
the emotions of loneliness, depression and "spiritual cynicism" that
are so very precisely described in the third chapter of Lamentations:
"I am the man who has
seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. God has driven me away and made me
walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, he has turned his hand against me
again and again, all day long. He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and
has broken my bones. He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and
hardship. He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead. He has walled
me in so I cannot escape; he has weighed me down with chains. Even when I call
out or cry for help, he shuts out my prayer. He has barred my way with blocks
of stone; he has made my paths crooked. Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion
in hiding, he dragged me from the path and mangled me and left me without help.
He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows. He pierced my heart with
arrows from his quiver. I became the laughingstock of all my people; they mock
me in song all day long. He has filled me with bitter herbs and sated me with
gall. He has broken my teeth with gravel; he has trampled me in the dust. I
have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. So I say,
"My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord." I
remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well
remember them, and my soul is downcast within me."
Of course, the primary
reason that we cannot HEAR God is that we cannot SEE ourselves clearly. Since
we do not know any more who we really are, we cannot
hear God in the same way as before, such that He seems to be silent. In other
words, because our identity is being changed, so is the way in which we
perceive God.
During that confusing
period, many Christians are forced to ask themselves: "What has God really
created me for? Who am I now that no one recognizes me any more for what I used
to be?" In essence, we struggle with the following
question: "Who am I now that I
have no past and no future, and how much God means to me in all this?"
Finding Genuine Intimacy and Peace with God
There comes a point when
eventually our mourning and bitterness must cease. We can either keep on with
the depressive feelings of the second phase, or we can cry out to God until we
find enduring peace and real intimacy with Him. We cannot remove ourselves from
the desert, but we can choose our attitude in it. This, in turn, determines how long we will
stay in it. For instance, most
Israelites were meant to go through a short time of wilderness after Egypt, but
because they chose idolatry, bitterness and unbelief, their desert became a
long process of 40 years and most of them never entered the Promised Land.
Deserts are not meant to kill us spiritually, but to prepare us for a better
stage in life. They cannot be shortened, but our attitude can make them longer.
This is when we must
choose to seek God with a different attitude. This is the kind of situation where we have
absolutely no other choice. Either God is nowhere, or God is now here! We
desperately need God, and a quick fix through Him will not do it. However long it may take, we must press on
through surrender, prayer, worship, fasting or whatever
"breakthrough" that works for us, until we finally start to perceive
His voice and find real peace. Now, it
is very important that if we are going to seek God, we seek him with the right
motivations. Often, even unconsciously, we pursue Him for the following two
wrong reasons:
1.
The first wrong
motivation is to seek Him so that He gives us a precise plan of action of what
to do for Him. The reason is that unconsciously we want to do something so at
to redefine our lost identity. In itself there is nothing wrong to build our
self-esteem through some activity, but there is a danger that we miss the whole
point of the desert. During such times God wants us to slow down, take a lot of
time in prayer and discover who we really are as we discover who He really is.
At this point in our lives, our being matters more than all our doing. God
wants to transform the way we see ourselves through Him. He does this by
revealing all the prideful and egocentric motivations we had in our
"former life", to show us that He does not see us through our jobs,
our positions or even through all the people we loved. In the desert, God does
not see us as "the prince of Egypt", as "the preferred son of
Jacob", or as "the prophet of Israel". He sees us as we really
are - sinners who do not need to prove ourselves to Him or to others.
At
the same time, we are not just sinners, but dearly beloved children of His, who
have a priceless value to Him. The more we understand this paradox of our
identity, the deeper we are being transformed. It is precisely because in desert
we have nothing to show for ourselves that we can understand our true value
before God. It is a time when our self-esteem cannot be defined by our
accomplishments, and therefore we must find it in our intimacy with God.
2.
The second wrong
motivation we have in seeking God may be the fact that we seek more temporal
and earthly answers than God Himself. Unconsciously, we seek Him to get back
the job, the house, the mate, the ministry or the situation that we have lost.
Now,
there is nothing wrong with seeking such blessings, but there is always a
danger that they become more important than God Himself. Idolatry is never a
danger with bad things, but with good ones. We get so much blessed by God that
we forget Him and become self-centered and self-deceived. Desert times are
meant to bring us back to seek God just for Himself, beyond all that He can
give us: the Giver is more important than all His gifts.
When
a human being has reached the point that God's presence matters more than all
other blessings, pleasure and securities in this life, then such a person is
truly blessed. This is why Christians who have endured long times of prison
with God usually come out with an authority, a peace and a love that cannot be
explained in human terms. This is why God allows even his best people to be
thrown in prisons. From time to time the reset button of isolation-desert times
needs to be pushed, so that we see life through the Giver rather than through
His gifts.
The most obvious sign that
we are "successfully" going through the third stage is the sense of
peace and surrender that characterizes us. If we can genuinely say to God:
"however long you want me to stay in that unchangeable situation, I trust
you and praise you for this, because your presence matters more than anything
else in my life", than peace will certainly rule in our hearts.
Another sign is that we
become transparent and humble. We do not have any more to prove ourselves to
anyone.
Another encouraging sign
is the miraculous favor of God for our physical needs as we learn to
supernaturally depend on God. For instance, Jesus was served by the angels and
Elijah was fed by the ravens.
Directly related to this
is the ability to walk in the supernatural.
Joseph became an expert at
giving interpretation of dreams, Moses had his burning bush experience and
miraculous signs, and Elijah was raising the dead and multiplying flour and
oil.
Seeing the Light at the End of the Tunnel and
Patiently Exiting
At the beginning of this
final stage, God usually gives us some signs in advance that our situation will
end, in order to encourage us. It can be a supernatural revelation, a dream or
an intuition that shows us that things will take a different turn, or it can be
through people or conditions that give us a clear confirmation of what is
already in our hearts. Usually, if we have fully surrendered and not put false
hopes in people or circumstances (as we used to do in the early stages of our
desert times), then we can recognize God's voice for ourselves. It is very
important in this final phase that we keep on with the same attitude of trust
and peace that we had in the third stage, by not forcing out the final outcome.
Often, when we see the light at the end of the tunnel, we can be tempted to
speed up the final process, instead of having the patience to wait on God. He
has the perfect timing, and sometimes this final stage of the whole process may
take longer than we hoped.
The reason we do not have
to speed up things is that desert times usually finish with dramatic
turn-around: After 14 years the slave Joseph becomes prime minister overnight;
after 40 years the long forgotten Moses suddenly comes back and within days two
nations are completely shaken; after 3-4 years Elijah radically revolutionizes
everything in one day at Mt Carmel; after 30 years, Jesus, who is not known
before, ends up his desert and starts his ministry with a spectacular
demonstration of miraculous power.
God may keep us a long
time in the waiting, but when He moves, it is fast and with power!
The way I described each
sequence may not be as "extreme" for some of us, but they still
include the following characteristics:
Summary of the 4 phases:
In the first phase, we are
progressively or suddenly being removed from our secure environment and role.
This leads us in the
second phase in which we experience some "dark night of the soul" as
we struggle to find God and our real identity through Him.
The third phase begins by
a desperate seeking of God until we finally find surrender, peace and genuine
intimacy with God.
In the final stage, we
receive early on encouraging signs that the whole process of isolation will
eventually finish.