Walking With God In A Desert Place
Part One
*Particle Post*
Desert: is a barren area of land where little precipitation occurs and consequently living conditions are hostile. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to the processes of denudation (the long-term sum of the processes that cause the wearing away of the earth’s surface leading to a reduction in elevation)
- What would you consider to be desert experiences in life?
Decline of health
Loss of job
Death
God often times ushers his people into desert experiences to teach them to listen, trust that he will provide, and to purge out the “I” or the ego of self. These experiences are often challenging and painful. They are often filled with draughts of disconnection from God. There seems to be no shelter or protection from the hostile environment of our drought experience.
IT’S HOT HERE AND THERE IS NO WAY OUT!
Many patriots of the Bible went through these experiences: Abraham and Sarah (delayed promise), Isaac and Rebekah (Lebon failed to keep his promised word for the hand or Rebekah) Moses, Joshua, David, Elijah, John the Baptist, Jesus, and Paul all spent significant time in the desert before rising up to fulfill their roles in God’s plan of redemption.
There was no escaping the desert places in each one of their lives. These great men and women of God had no choice but to go through it in order to step over into their promise. Their experiences are great examples to us on how to handle our own desert place.
Luke 14: 1-13
Jesus was led into a desert place after being full of the spirit, where he was then met by Satan and tempted of him for forty days and nights.
We know that there were no sin found in Jesus, but his experience gives us great insight on how and what to do and expect during these experiences.
- God will never lead us into the desert without first filling us with his spirit.
In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jn: 1:1, 14
So, with that being said Jesus in the flesh already had the spirit of God, but for demonstration had to go through the process we are required to go through. The baptism of water, was performed prior and right after then he was led. KEY: the knowledge, wisdom, revelation had been already there and all the tools needed to walk with God was readily at hand.
- God often times are quiet during these experiences.
This is referred to The Dark Night of Soul: This process can occur at any point in one’s life, but it usually emerges after a spiritual seeker has attained a lot of spiritual knowledge or growth.
Often times this can drive a believer away from Christ because they continue to seek after the light, but all they can find is the darkness. It is hard to have walked in the light only to come to a point in your life of pure darkness. Why only darkness: Because we are to learn to embrace this dark period of our life. There are great lessons learned, self-discovery, and deliverance that occurs during this time.
God knows the right time to allow this phase of our life to take place. How long we stay in it depends on us.
Sometimes we can become so self – sufficient we feel we don’t need God, unaware we feel this way our actions dictate we have become dependent on ourselves and have put our trust others.
Think about that statement. What does it mean when we feel this way? Do you feel this way now? Have you ever felt this way?
The dark night of the soul is an overall beautiful experience where a person’s ego/false self is “dying” to their true Self which is LOVE or in other words one is realizing the ego self is false and never really existed. The devil is a liar and he has been a liar from the beginning.
- You are in for the fight of your life and true identity during this time. The enemy will continue to spill his lies into your thinking pattern.
- You will feel like you are about to lose your mind if You do not embrace and denounce every hidden thought, past hurt, and defile word spoke over and into you.
- This is what keeps the agape love from flowing freely through us and holds us bound and captive at the Jordan.
- The gift is without repentance, but God desires for us to live and not die.
God, can use us to preach a house down, but we can be dying on the inside from bitterness, resentfulness, envy, strife, etc. All because our flesh is over riding who we truly are to be and that is love. Without it everything we do is in vain.
God’s grace and his mercy endures for ever and his love for his creation is overwhelming. That’s why he takes us through these purging periods of our life. These dry and empty periods when it feels like we are all alone and nobody can understand what we are feeling or going through. It’s not meant for anyone to understand, so stop looking for people, and pull out the Word.
- God knows when you are ready for the light to shine.
- Jn:1:4-5:In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
No Apologies Here 