The Reason for the Desert - Conclusion

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord . Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. Deuteronomy 8:1‭-‬5 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/deu.8.1-5.NIVUK

So we see, then, that the Israelites had to pass through the desert to get to the Promised Land, to reach the place God would give them as their home and where His plan for their lives would be realised. This is often the way for us, and the desert is often the place where we spend time between different phases or stages in our life. For this reason, it's important to understand the three aspects of the desert experience that Moses mentions in these verses: the PURPOSE - to prepare us for what God has next; the PROVISION - how God plans to support us through the experience and the PREPARATION - the particular, and often painful, means God uses to discipline us and make us ready for His use. Now, we might understand these very well, but let us be under no illusions that they are painful. I myself experienced this. At the start of the summer of 2019, I had no job. I assumed it would be easy to find another one. I had plenty of reasons to believe so. I have a strong CV. I had never been out of work for more than a month in my whole career. I had been coached on interview techniques. Why would I not be confident? But it didn't happen like that. I was out of full time work for four months. During this time, I relied on occasional work as a translator and interpreter to keep my family going. Previously it had been nothing more than a handy extra - a little bit of cash we could use for non-essentials. Now, by the grace of God, it was enough to see us through those four months. We were receiving our own manna from Heaven. So we had the provision, but for the life of me I could not see a purpose. I was exhausting myself preparing for interviews and then not getting jobs, even those that were beneath my capabilities. I could not understand why. I was frustrated and angry and, to be honest, I felt rejected. I also felt the pressure of not having a permanent job to provide for my family or to keep them in the style to which they were accustomed. I could see no way out. And that just made me angry. Now the problem of being angry when you're going to interviews is that you don't perform well in the interview, which just makes you more angry. Before long you're trapped in a vicious circle and you can't get out. I felt like I was stuck. Until one afternoon when I had a bit of a breakthrough. I was carrying some shopping home on a rainy day when suddenly it struck me: what if I'm the problem? What if the obstacle that's preventing me getting a job is me? Now this is a pretty dramatic and painful realisation for anyone who is looking for a job. But I looked inside myself and, although I was screaming inside that it couldn't possibly be my fault, it didn't take me long to realise that in some small ways it could be. Yes, I could be the one preventing me from getting a job. I recognised attitudes that hadn't been right, approaches to situations that could have been better, conflicts that could have been avoided, and I repented of them all. It wasn't easy. Human nature when confronted with wrongdoing or failures grasps and snatches at the tiniest possibility that someone else or something else was to blame. But in one moment of calm lucidity I saw that this was not the way forward. And I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. My mentality had changed. I understood the reason why I had spent four months in the desert: it was so God could prepare my heart and mind for the next job. I'd love to say that my next interview was an instant success. It wasn't. But the interview after it was. I got the job - a job which uses more of my skills and abilities than any other - a spectacularly good fit. And I got it because God disciplined me for four months to change me to fit into it. Brother, sister, when trouble comes, we don't always know why. And sometimes we will never know. In times like these, the only thing we can do is trust God each day for his blessings that are new every morning and keep going. But maybe asking 'Why?' is not the right question. Maybe 'What do you want to teach me?' is a better approach. Sometimes, if we listen, repent and obey, we might find our way out of the desert sooner.

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