rediscovering God’s purpose
How does God deal with us during the desert season? He loves us, but what does that love look like and can it really be a deeper kind of love? Another day passes in my desert season, and there’s no relief sight. I search for my friend Ulaama’s gift to me, a bookmark with the bible verse Isaiah 58:11 written in Mongolian:
“ADONAI will always guide you;
he will satisfy your needs in the desert,
he will renew the strength in your limbs;
so that you will be like a watered garden,
like a spring whose water never fails.”— Isaiah 58:11 CJB
I met Ulaama on a short-term mission trip to Mongolia the summer after I graduated college. He’s a member of one of the bigger churches in Ulaanbaatar (UB) and serving as a guide to our team of seven. On the last day of our time there, Ulaama presents me with this beautifully decorated, hand-made bookmark. This gift means so much because it confirms how much I love Mongolia and its people. Another authority translates desert as “sun-scorched land” reminding me of the vast desert covering most of the country.
In 2001, I make a declaration that this will be the theme verse for my life during this time. The sun-scorched land speaks about my life - a barren desert spiritually, struggling to remember some glimpse of the God I once knew and with whom I shared sacred fellowship. I stumble over the first promise written to me through these verses of poetry. ADONAI will always guide you. I don’t even know if He’s here with me; I don’t feel His presence in my life anymore. How will he guide me? God’s promise is that even in the desert seasons of our lives, He will meet all our needs.
What is God’s purpose for me in the dry and barren land?
There is a turning point. I can’t accept God’s purpose for me until sustaining grace softens my heart. It not that I comprehend sustaining grace, but sustaining grace apprehends me. And I surrender to the journey, to the process. It’s taken me more than half a lifetime to even begin to love the process.
My natural tendency is to hate the process, to be impatient with it, and to focus my attention on the final outcome. But once I encounter sustaining grace, I rediscover God’s purpose for me during seasons of spiritual dryness. And this is the key to walking. To shift my attention on God’s purpose and away from myself. The widow thinks that the death of her son has something to do with her - with her sin. I know the literature out there and the current teaching. If you’ve lost the feeling of fellowship, it might be because you’ve sinned or are disobeying. Check that first, before anything else! I’m here to walk next to you and encourage you. To bring a new teaching. It’s not about what you did or didn’t do. God led you here as he has led me countless times. He has a purpose of you. Let’s rediscover that together, and do the only thing we can do. Enjoy the journey. Learn to love the desert season as I have.
Are you still hung up on thinking that it’s something you did or didn’t do? The good news is that it doesn’t matter. Because whether it is linked to sin or because God led you here, God’s purpose is the same. The steps to take are exactly time. Let’s please stop the debate and inner conflict in our minds on whether I feel this way because of reason a, b, or c. What does it matter if God’s purpose is the same and our call to action is the same in each circumstance? The action is to focus on God’s purpose and to enjoy the journey. Enjoying the journey! I know this means a fundamental shift in who I am. Please join me in asking God to transform us from people who hate the journey and people who hate the process into a people who can be content in every circumstance. God, we do want to love the journey as much as the destination and to love the process as much as the final outcome.
The next three parts of the blook dig deeper into God’s purpose for leading us through a desert season. His purpose has three inter-related parts: (i) for Him to be my portion and only desire, (ii) to grow in heart-character, and (iii) to witness His glory and heartbeat for nations.
God’s purpose for me in the desert season is:
For Him to be my portion and only desire
To grow in heart-character
To witness His glory and heartbeat for nations
He will satisfy your needs in the desert. What are my needs? When I all of my only ifs fade away, I’m left with one need - God Himself. We enter the desert because God wants to draw us closer to him. If he takes away the feelings (the gifts), will I still pursue God as He has pursued me time and time again?
He will renew the strength in your limbs. Another translation says it: He will strengthen your frame. The prevailing teaching around character growth is about becoming Christ-like and sanctified. The term heart-character emphasizes the reason why God is passionate about our character growth. Our hearts our containers for God’s abiding presence. And heart-character is our capacity to know and experience Him. To hold Him. He wants our containers to grow so that He can give us more of Himself. Remember my joy joy joy joy joy joy!! =) experience? I could only hang on to it for four days because I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I want to grow so that I can hold more of God.
So that you will be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails. The watered garden is simile for revival. Beginning with personal revival and then poured out. The spring whose water never fails points to the Holy Spirit moving forward and out to the nations. When we spend enough time with God in the desert seasons, we hear his heartbeat in the silences. That heartbeat is for the entire world, literally, cosmos. I can’t wait to get there with you.
The more I lift my mind to God’s purpose, the better I walk through this season. When it comes to loving the process (sometimes painful), I’m still not there. But I’m learning to love the journey as much as the promised destination, taking it one day at a time.
Observation - What are the 3 purposes God has for desert seasons?
Understanding - Which purpose resonates with you right now?
Application - What is one thing I can do today?