Wilderness
Psalms 121:1-2, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.2My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.”
Salutations good friends! I do pray this finds you well and ready to face the day that has been given to you! As we travel the journey we have been given for today, let’s look at how sometimes you may feel like you have been brought to the wilderness. As a believer, our lives are changed for the better, but the devil attacks more often because he wants to take us away from God. When we think about it, life really feels like we have been brought to a wild and rough wilderness with nothing but chaotic bushes and animals charging toward us. God used the wilderness as a training, teaching tool, a place that people could also find a transformation, a new real relationship with Him. Many times, if you think about it, we find our quiet time, our alone time on the beach, being alone on a hike, alone on a mountain top, or even in our own prayer room, as the place we can get closer to God. The wilderness is summed up as a place of danger, a place of testing endurance, a place filled with temptation to pull away from God; but also, a place to have divine intimacy with God, a way to become fully reliant on God, a training camp for leadership, and a place for renewal so you can transform into the discipling person God chose you to be! We all have been invited to be a part of God’s family, and if we seek Him during life’s journey, we will find Him, because He is always with us! God is the way to endure the wilderness of this world; providing us the ultimate guide through scriptures, through fasting, through membership with like-minded believers, through totally giving our trust in Him. As you ponder on the wilderness surrounding you today, pray first, asking God to enter within and protect you on the outside as well. Seek Him in all trials and temptations, seek Him in all the good times also. This world is like a wasteland, parts are brutal, parts are peaceful; but to endure any of it, we must trust and obey, place our faith in His guidance, totally accept all He provides, then totally realize and admonish that the true source of eternal happiness is in His hands. If you want to survive the wilderness, then trust God!
Scriptures:
Read: James 4:7-8, Isaiah 43:2,18-19, Romans 12:2, Psalms 107:4-9, Joshua 1:9, Psalms 18:6, Psalms 145:18, Isaiah 41:10, Matthew 28:18-20, Romans 8:38-39, I Peter 5:6-7
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, thank you for the wilderness of this world. Thank you, Father, for providing the ways to endure anything in this world that the devil may try to use in leading us away from you. Help us, Father, to study your words, to listen to those already working through this wilderness, and accept you as the one who can bring us to the eternal happiness you have promised. Please Father, continue to enter our souls with your presence so that we can have the strength to keep working toward heaven. Amen.