Making A Way In The Wilderness

Isaiah 43:18-19 (ESV) –

“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

We don’t have many wildernesses in the UK. I think the closest I’ve ever come to getting lost in the wilderness is when I was walking in the New Forest and my phone went dead. I’d like to say it was an epic adventure where I fashioned a shelter out of branches, foraged for edible wild plants and escaped on a wild horse that I tamed by singing ‘Take Me Home’ by John Denver. The truth is I wandered around for about thirty minutes until I stumbled across a McDonalds.

The wilderness seems to pop up all over the Bible and is often associated with formation and preparation. The Israelites wander in the wilderness for forty years before entering into the promise land, David spends much of his time before he becomes king in the wilderness, Jesus spends forty days in the wilderness right at the start of his ministry. The wilderness is a key part of spiritual formation and it seems to be something that most, if not all, Christians go through at some point in their lives. It’s those times when things are really tough, when it feels like nothing is changing, when living just feels like hard work.

God’s encouragement in this passage is that he will make a way in the wilderness. The wilderness is not something that God leads us to, it’s something that God leads us through. And we come out the other side changed. For many of us, 2020 was a super tough year, 2021 might be looking just as daunting. God’s promise to us is that he will make a way through the wilderness. Keep going!

Prayer – Father, thank you that you promise that however hard life gets you will never leave us and you will make a way through for us. Help me to trust you during the tough times.