Desert Experience

Hi Everyone,

Prayed that all of you were blessed with the sharing on Isaac and Ismael. I was going through Luke Chapter this morning and 1 verse caught my thot and stayed there. It was in the last verse of the chapter that said John the Baptist was sent to the desert to live till the time of his ministry come.

Desert. When we think of desert, it is a place of torment. The temperature is so hot in the day that some said you can fry an egg on a rock and so cold in the night. It is a harsh place live in. Only the toughest will survive. Water is scarce. There is hardly any shade from the sun. It is just miles and miles of sand with high possibility of getting lost and die of thirst.

Yet, we see here that John the Baptist was sent to live in the desert till the time of his ministry. And he is not the first person to have the desert experience in the Bible nor will he be the last.

We see that Abraham has to journey from his home country to a new promise land and he has to pass thru the desert land.

We see Moses being called but ended up in the desert for 40yrs before the time of his ministry came. And the children of Israel have to journey in the desert for 40yrs before a entire generation die off and a new generation that will enter into the promise land.

And there are others like David who may not be in the desert literally but have desert experience between the time he was anointed as king and to be literally made the king of Israel. Even Paul apparently seems to spend 3 yrs in the desert after his conversion before he start his public ministry. (I could be wrong here in that he was in a literal desert but he definitely have the desert experience!)

So, desert experience is not something that is rare. In fact, it seems like it is a 'must' or a 'boot camp' experience for anyone that Father wants to use.

It seems to be a place where we are stripped of everything to the point that all we can do it to look up. It is a place where even the most powerful will be reduced to mere mortal. It is a place where with all our intellectual knowledge or even spiritual knowledge does not seem to work. It is a place that all the polished talk seems to end. A place that everything seems to die. It is a place of 'nothingness'.

Yet it is a welcome place for us because it is in such a 'place' where Father can get our full attention, It is in such a place that we will realise with all our training, it is nothing without Father's intervention. It is in such a place where we realise that all our riches will not get us through. It is in such a place that we are stripped of everthing. It is in such a place that we begin to die. And it is ONLY when we DIE, than we will EXPERIENCE the resurrection of CHRIST in our lives.

And this morning, I sense that there is a purpose of why Father allows us or sometimes even intentionally bring us through the desert experience. The purpose is so that we will eventually learn that only HIM and HIM alone will matter.

It is not a place of punishment as many think. It is not a place of curse from Father. It is not an indication that we are out of the will of Father. In fact, it might be even the reverse in the sense that because we are in His Will, He allows us to go thru the desert experience before our time of ministry comes.

Is anyone of you going through a desert experience where your situation become unbearable, where nothing works, where death (symbolically) seems definite? I want to encourage you that you are not out of His will. But rather it is a place of training that He has allow everyone of us to go through in various stage of our life.

Know that the desert experience will come to an end. Know that when it ended, Father has a greater plan or ministry for us that we have never thought of. And yet, it will not happen if we do not go through the desert experience.