I used to take a fair number of road trips. I took personal trips, too, but I traveled with my work as well, for about ten years. I always planned my trips carefully to avoid rush hours in large cities, and to be able to stay in a safe place each night.
In order to make reservations for each night of your trip, you need to know when you will arrive at the end of each day. There are many factors in traveling that affect arrival times.
• The Terrain – mountainous terrain is much slower going – and is specified in drive time, not miles
• Weather – what is the environment like on the road
• The type of road
• The type of vehicle you’re in – some vehicles are faster
• Experience of the driver
• What condition the driver is in
• How many people the driver interacts with along the way – We all know at least one person that can’t get ANYTHING done because they’re too busy running their mouth all the time)
• Time of Day You’re traveling – which affects the Traffic
• How many attractions along the way I stopped at
• And lastly, HOW MANY BREAKS I TOOK. How many times I pulled off and parked to get something to eat or just stretch my legs.
• I have never met anyone who wanted a longer wilderness journey.
• I never knew anyone who said “Yes, Lord! Make my journey LONGER!”
• And anyone who prays to be put in the wilderness has for sure never been through one.
So today I want to talk to you about How To Prolong Your Wilderness Seasons – So you know what NOT to do if you DON’T want them prolonged.
We can tell a lot about how to prolong a wilderness season by looking at the journey of the Israelites when they were in the desert.
This is a list of things that constitute pulling over and parking on your trip through the wilderness. They are the things that will cause your wilderness season to go on for FAR longer, just like many of them did for the Israelites.
1. The number ONE way to prolong your wilderness season is to SIN –Sin got the Israelites punished time and time again in the Bible.
Remember why Jesus was led into the wilderness?
Matthew 4:1
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
This is related to Deuteronomy 8:2 :
2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.
Expound on Deut. 8:2:
To humble thee – The wilderness is a place of humbling. It is a place where we do not have our usual ability to do for ourselves.
In my experiences, I found the wilderness was often a place of working for far less than what I was usually paid, it was a place of having to live where I did not wish to live and be around people I didn’t want to be around. A place where I seemed to have power over nothing in my circumstances.
A place where our focus is taken away from prestige, status and social climbing, and we become focused on more important things. God humbles us to draw us closer to Him, as well as to help us let go of our pridefulness. Pridefulness is a wide open gate to Satan to attack your life.
Proverbs 16:18
18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
To prove thee – Only 2 months after I left for Texas on my water walk of 2009-2010, I was struggling with the fact that I had expected to see much more happen after arriving in the new place, and it was confusing.
Not only was nothing happening, but He wasn’t telling me why. As I was reading Deut. 8:2… “to prove you, to know what was in your heart…,” I saw a flash vision of a seamstress testing a piece of thread by pulling it taut between her hands.
Being an amateur seamstress myself, I knew testing the thread like that was something you did to be sure the thread would be strong enough for its intended purpose, and to be sure it won’t break, causing all your work to unravel.
He was showing me that in our wilderness seasons, we are being proved…we are being tested…to see whether we are strong enough for our intended purpose, or whether we will break, causing all His work to unravel.
To know what was in thine heart (He wants your heart to be fully His). We are often unaware when we have given our heart to an idol, that’s why the Lord has to show us we have idols in our life.
Whether you would keep His commandments or no – He already knows, THIS part is for you. Remember when Peter told Jesus he was ready to go to prison or even die for Him in Matt. 26:35?
Peter saying that opened the door for him to be tested on that. In Luke 22:54-62 we see that he in fact denied Jesus 3 times just after that. This does not mean Peter was a bad person, it means Peter did not know his own heart, just as we don’t know ours.
We think we would never deny Him either, but WOULD WE? Would we if we were threatened with death or ruin? We won’t know for sure until we are tested, will we.
The Lord mercifully allows us to be tested in our wilderness seasons to show us that we are NOT where we think we are in our hearts yet. That allows us to praise Him for showing us and to ask Him for help doing better.
Because Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted, we can be sure we will as well. The wilderness is a terrifying place – hot, barren and wearisome. There is no comfort there, and no familiarity to anchor us in our daily routines. All that is stripped away to lead us to focus only on our God to provide for us and lead us out of that fiery desert.
So just what are we likely to be tempted by in our wilderness seasons? Let’s take a look at a list of temptations faced by the Israelites to get an idea of temptations we can expect to show up in our wilderness seasons.
1. Idolatry - which often (but not always) happens when we are Seeking wrong comforts – Sins are kind of like stopping at ATTRACTIONS ALONG WAY on a road trip when you’re not supposed to be stopping at ALL.
Idolatry is the temptation to find an idol to focus on in our situation when God does not show up in our situation when we think He should have shown up. Exodus 32:1
Exodus 32:1
1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
Moses was up on the mountain getting instruction for them and didn’t come back down when they thought he should so they took matters into their own hands. That turned out to be a very bad idea.
They made a golden calf and began worshipping it in the midst of a big party. How bad do YOU think it will get if every time the Lord looks at you, He sees that idol taking His place in your life? If He sees you comforting YOURSELF with your idol instead of turning to The Comforter – the Holy Spirit that HE provided for you? If He sees you spending all your time, energy and planning on an idol, instead of Him? If He sees your thoughts are continually on your idol, and not on your savior, your bridegroom?
If you are in idolatry, you need to repent immediately
And come away from that idol completely.
When we are in a wilderness season, our comforts have been stripped away in order to get our attention on God. As the pressure increases on us, we humans we want something to comfort us – even for a few minutes or an hour, to help us get through that fiery desert; To give us some respite from the pressures we are under. Anything to give us a breather from our circumstances.
No matter how miserable you are, you do not want to give in to the temptation to seek comfort in anything that is in opposition to God’s Word and when you are scared or hurting, The temptation is very great and the enemy knows that about you. He also knows what comfort you will be attracted to whether it is a person, alcohol, shopping, drugs or whatever. Don’t play into his hands.
But God is faithful and if we will just hold on a little longer, He will show Himself faithful in our situation. No matter how scared or miserable you are in your wilderness is right now, you will make it much worse by getting into idolatry and you will actually PROLONG your wilderness season. We never want to increase our time in the desert.
Idolatry was one of the biggest things I had problems with and it delayed me I don’t know how many times because I did not know the rules of navigating a wilderness journey.
Rule #1 – RUN when you see anything you are likely to idolize !!!!!
Different people idolize different things. For me, it was a happy relationship. Growing up watching my parents arguing, the only dream I had as a little girl was to be happily married. A happy relationship to me would be the ultimate comfort.
To some people, though, money is their comfort, for others it may be drugs, alcohol, sexual pleasure or some form of success. Only you know what you are likely to idolize. Watch out for THAT, whatever THAT is to you.
2. To Worry & be fearful
Numbers 13:32-33
32 And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.
33 And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
Numbers 14:1
1 And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.
When we are under pressure in a wilderness season, whatever is dark in our hearts will rise to the surface. This often results in worry, fearfulness and other bad behaviors.
In a wilderness season, our ability to provide for ourselves is usually taken from us and we become terrified as we watch our bills continue to come in the mail, but we don’t have any paycheck on the other side to pay them with. What will we do? How will we live?
Fear and sin are I think our two biggest hindrances in the wilderness seasons.
When the Children of Israel were taken up to the Jordan and were about to cross over, most of the spies came back saying there were giants in the land, and they were nothing up against them. Everyone became afraid.
Solution: Find the verses that promise your provision and confess them. Study them and confess until you believe every last one of them. If you don’t know where they are, get you a promise book where you can look scriptures up by subject.
3. Complain & murmur –
Exodus 16:2-3
2 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness:
3 And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
The hardest thing to do when everything in your life is going wrong is to keep your mouth shut.
When we hurt, we want others to know it. We don’t want to have to go through all that, but if we do have to go through it, we want to be sure everybody knows it.
Our murmuring is against God Himself, the Word says in Ex 16:8.
Never, ever say, nothing can get worse or what else can possibly go wrong. Because you don’t want to know.
4. Gossip & Backbite –
Numbers 12:2
2 And they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it.
Numbers 14:2
2 And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!
One of Satan’s favorite tactics to get our attention off God and on someone else’s faults or sin. After all, if we are looking at theirs, we aren’t paying any attention to ours.
Whenever we gossip, God will put us in a situation similar to what the person we’re gossiping about is in, and make sure we get the full effect so we can repent.
Gossip and slander are the devil’s work, not God’s, and we don’t need to be participating in them.
5. Blaming others – To blame everyone else for our past mistakes Exodus 32:24
Exodus 32:24
24 And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.
Aaron blamed what he did on the gold and the fire. Blame only keeps us stuck where we are. We can’t change what we did but we do need to own up to it. God can’t help us unless we do, and we will stay right where we are. In the wilderness.
6. To trust in our own ability to provide over God’s
Exodus 16:19-20
19 And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning.
20 Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank: and Moses was wroth with them.
We feel we can just save up enough that we won’t have to believe God for provision, but God will make sure all our reserves are quickly depleted when He wants to lead us into the wilderness to teach us to trust in Him.
We feel like if we have a job and a paycheck, we can take care of ourselves. We know from the recent past that our jobs can disappear overnight. Only God is 100% dependable. Jobs are temporary, as is our ability to work them.
God doesn’t need for you to have a job, an investment account or even a bank account to bring you provision. He is God. He can get the provision you need to you through any number of channels, from places and people that will shock you. Trust Him. He is God!
7. To faint in your mind and want to turn back to Egypt Numbers 11:5
Numbers 11:5
5 We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick:
I have a dog that is difficult to walk. She is interested in everything around her, which is good, but I’ll feel her pulling behind me and look back and her head is turned around backwards, so her feet won’t take her forwards. We can’t let our pasts pull on us when God is trying to move us forward or He will pass us over for promotion and choose someone else.
This is what Lot’s wife did as Sodom and Gomorrah was burning, she looked back. She probably wanted to go home and knew she never would again, but because she DISOBEYED what God was telling her to do, it kept her from moving forward. Looking back keeps us stuck. Now Lot’s wife is forever stuck in that moment of looking back, on that mountain.
When we’re in a really hard place, it is human nature to remember “the good old days.” We think about how much better everything was back then.
You know what? It wasn’t. And you are not going to go higher with God looking back at your past. It wasn’t better back then or we would have stayed there. It was different.
Its normal to want to grab at comfort any place we can find it.
But if we cling to our sin, if we cling to our idolatry, if we refuse to let Him humble us and refine us, what we will find instead of coming out of the wilderness is that the penalties for our sin and our idolatry and our stubbornness become more and more severe. We are led back into the desert for another go around that same old mountain. We are taken test after test after test, and we can’t move on with our lives because we are still stuck out in the desert, because we refuse to obey.
Keep putting one foot in front of the other, and moving towards what God has for you in the future. What He has is always better.
Wilderness seasons are weary journeys where we are barely hanging on from day to day. They are weary times. The devil loves to attack us when we are weary because he knows the more tired we are, the less we will feel like fighting him off or fighting temptation.
And in the wilderness, the pressure is on us from all sides – we are low on money, we are often around people we don’t enjoy, or working jobs we really can’t stand. We may live some place we don’t like. The people close to us are usually looking at us with raised eyebrows thinking we have lost our minds because we just did something that, to them, looks insane. They do not understand that we have been called by the King and He has extended to us this invitation to get to know Him and His ways better. He is trying to teach us to trust Him at all costs. He wants us to know Him as our Provider, just like He was trying to teach the Israelites.
And if we will only believe, our manna will show up every day, too.
