For a quick throwback post, I was reminded of something I wrote just over 3 years ago. I recently feel like I have been walking through a similar season, and by God’s grace, He is beginning to restore and refresh me again.

Something I wanted to add that has been a constant reminder to me this year is that God is always with us. Whether we feel it or believe it or know it, his last promise to us in Matthew is that He will be with us always to the end of the age. I remind myself of that in every situation. He is with me.

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Over the past couple months, I feel like there has been an epidemic of Christians feeling like they are in the “wilderness” spiritually. They feel parched, dry, hard, and desolate. Me too. For whatever reason or purpose, spiritually I was feeling dehydrated and would cling and devour even a drop of knowing that God was near.

If there is anything I have learned since knowing Jesus, it’s the truth that knowing Jesus does not guarantee a life free of hardship, struggle, and turmoil. Rather, knowing Jesus has given me hope in all of these situations that I didn’t have before.

And this time, in the wilderness, God was gracious enough to show me a purpose for it.

This is the Scripture He has placed over this season in life from Deuteronomy 8:

“And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” (vs. 2-3)

(Side note: Deuteronomy 8 is one my favorite chapters, so read the whole thing if you get a chance. So good.)

The wilderness is not just for us to suffer, but for us to hunger and thirst. Desperately. And in that desperation, when God comes in and feeds and gives us drink, we are reminded of how desperately we need Him.

Life can make us easily forget. The wilderness causes us to hunger and thirst for God, to long for Him. Then we find ourselves crying out like David did in Psalm 43: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Desperately. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” (Mt 5:6).

The wilderness teaches us how to hunger and thirst for God. Desperately. And when He comes to quench, we will be satisfied in Him.