The WOFOYO Podcast
The WOFOYO Podcast
Returning From The Wilderness (Part 1)
Ever walked back into a sanctuary and felt the air change? We open up about returning from a God-led wilderness to pews that don’t quite know what to do with you. Not every wilderness is a dry spell you manage within a program; sometimes God pulls you out to unlearn performance, meet Him without noise, and come back carrying a message that won’t fit the old molds.
We unpack why the wilderness is biblical and varied—think Moses, Elijah, John, and Jesus—and why modern church culture can struggle to recognize its fruit. From rumors and silence to sincere friends quoting Hebrews 10:25, we press into the difference between loyalty to a building and loyalty to the King. We talk about prophetic pressure, the temptation to bow to institutions for acceptance, and the subtle pride that can grow when every word you hear is only confirmation. The antidote is obedience: go where you’re sent, even if it stings, and let your life witness without argument.
These last years brought sharp wake-up calls: shutdowns that revealed allegiances, regional revival that rekindled hunger, and a needed reminder that judgment begins in the house of God. Painful? Yes. Gracious? Absolutely. We explore how God uses returning wilderness voices as a measure of mercy to invite congregations back to relationship with Jesus and Kingdom-first thinking. Expect practical steps for reentry: settle your testimony, refuse offense, serve without striving, and seek fellowship that loves Christ more than comfort. If you’ve been misunderstood, sidelined, or sent into a “hostile” room with a holy assignment, this conversation will steady your feet and soften your heart.
(Part 1 of2) https://wofoyo.org/
#wofoyo
This year's Pentecostal Women's Convention has been brought to you by Lee Denim Skirts, Breebach tennis shoes, and Bobby pins. To get the bun just right, Bobby pin it tight. Hallelujah. Everybody, welcome to another edition of the WoeFoYo podcast with C Dub and Bones. Bones sent me a message the other day, and it got me to thinking, I said, man, this would be a really good topic to discuss on our next uh episode. So here we are. Bones, I'm gonna let you take off with it and uh man have a go at it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I was thinking the other day about what happens when you get called out of the wilderness and you start start to uh start to enter a church, re-enter the the congregation. What happens when you get there and the place that you're at doesn't believe in the wilderness that you just came from. And the more I thought about that, the the more I thought, man, that that can be problematic. Um because you just came through a very very spiritual part of your walk. Um, you know, we've we've said that um a man with experience is never never at the mercy of a man with an argument.
SPEAKER_02:So it's a very defining time.
SPEAKER_00:It is. It's a very defining time for you. Uh but now you're amongst a group of people that uh pretty much think that you you walked away and and and may have abandoned them. Uh and I'll tell you where this came from. Um my wife and I were talking the other day, and she goes, Hey, I saw so-and-so bumped into so-and-so the other day. It's like, okay. The name didn't really ring a bell to me or anything. I I don't remember a lot of whole uh a whole lot of names. And um so we got to talking and says, Yeah, we says, uh we went to church together. So we're the same church. And the the lady goes, Oh yeah, what's what's your last name? And my wife told her what our last names were and said the lady went, Oh. As my wife knew immediately that that wasn't uh an oh like, oh yeah, I know who you are. It was more like a oh, we've heard about you all. And so then the conversation kind of got different, kinda kinda got distant, uh she said. Um so what that told me was uh when we stepped away from the church that we've been going to um there must have been a lot of things that were said that we of course never heard. Um because as we as my wife and I talked about it, so we know no one ever called us, no one ever talked to us, no one ever reached out to us and asked us where we were. Uh and we've been away from this church for several years now. Um no one asked us why we left. No one asked us where we went to. Uh I bumped in, well, we both bumped into several people from that church. Uh the associate pastor, the pastor himself, the pastor's wife. Um, so we've bumped into people from the church, but no one's ever asked us why we left, um, what we're doing, what we're up to, or anything like that. So there really should be no reason for anyone to really have a conversation uh amongst themselves as to why we left, because it would all be speculation and conjuncture if they did. So that got me to thinking Well, what happens when you go back to church and the folks that you're around now don't believe that you left because God called you away. And they don't believe that you've been in the place where God has been dealing with you. You just ran away. So anyway, that's kind of where we're at uh as far as uh this episode and and what we're gonna talk about. Other than you've got to really lean on that time you spent in the wilderness. Um you've got to really reflect back on that and know that hey, that was real for us. That was real. Um and understand that there's gonna be a lot of folks who don't who don't get it who don't really understand it. Um but the Holy Spirit will move on 'em at some point, we hope. And and and they will get it. So um that was just kind of what I was reflecting on over the last few days is is um how do you step back into almost a hostile environment?
SPEAKER_02:You have to be aware that not everybody's wilderness looks the same. It's gonna manifest themselves, uh gonna manifest itself the same. You know, uh there was a book, and I probably need to go back to read it, but everybody talks about how great the guy is, and every time I go, well, yeah, I don't see what the big whoop is. And there was a time I did, but every time I tried to really get into what the guy was writing, it's just like it made the Lord seem very distant. And I don't know why, and I'm not trying to say that about that guy. I'm saying it about me learning from that guy, right? Which is a different thing. John Bever wrote a book called Victory in the Wilderness. I didn't really um get it at the time, but he was talking, well, things are dry. But one of the things he kind of stressed in there was the most important thing for him was you still you stay in church. So he experienced his wilderness that he was talking about in church and stayed in church the whole time. You and I it did not look like that. Matter of fact, part of the issue was we kept trying to go back in church uh as far as local bodies, and the Lord kept showing us the exact same issue no matter where we went. And in doing so, we realized that he was calling us to be alone with him so he could refine the message that he was implanting in us, and so that we could have a very defined relationship with him.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And so you have to understand that it looks different for different people. So there's going to be a group of people that even if you talk about the wilderness, the fact that you left the church, which is everything that their Christian walk revolves around, is church, church, church, church, church, church, church. But they can't fathom that the wilderness would bring you to get alone in the mountain with God. Now they'll read about Elijah all day long. They'll read about Jesus going to be in the desert, going to be in the wilderness forty days and forty nights. They'll read about Moses stepping away for forty years. They'll quote you that there's none of those born among among women, there is none greater than John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_01:Yet he who is he is least in the kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven is greater than he. But here's the deal. Tell me about John's church. Tell me about John's congregation.
SPEAKER_02:Since we talked about John here within the last two months. Right. Tell me about that.
SPEAKER_01:John appeared in the wilderness baptizing beyond the River Jordan. Preaching.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So tell tell me about that.
SPEAKER_02:Now, the high likelihood, although not definitive, high likelihood that John was in the scene. So now you want to get into the scenes. You could talk about John the Baptist, you know, and that could have been his congregation. Nevertheless, there was a separation there. They weren't involved with all the stuff that everybody else. So these are these are folks that had it been a modern setting, go, well, why did you stop attending church for so long? When you have biblical examples of that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. On top of that, there are ministers out there preaching against the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02:I'll give you one. Just come out flat out, did it, and I've heard some good messages from the dude. He goes, Jeremiah Johnson is a guy that's supposed to, you know, supposed to be a prophetic voice and all this and that. And man, the Lord stopped letting me listen to Jeremiah Johnson because a lot of the observations that he has were nothing more than confirming what you and I had already arrived at that conclusion. And if we had, well, uh, he didn't tell you anything concerning it, he just talked to me about it. He goes, All you're getting is confirmation. Yeah, you're getting nothing new, and all that's doing is stroking your ego. And if you're not careful, that can cause you to go out and see how people treated you in the past, and and you're running the temptation or running a risk of getting into pride as well as focusing on oh, how that hurt when it really if you take an honest view of it, that don't mean a thing. The fact that it hurt, it was just hurt feelers. That ain't nothing compared to what our forebears went through. Nothing like it. Like what those in Nigeria are going through right now. That there's nothing like that. It's some people talking bad about you. Right. You know, it might have been some stuff you thought you had coming that you really didn't. And if you had gotten it, then it had probably ruined you to a degree. And so the Lord kept it from happening. That's all that is. But Jeremiah Johnson, you know, well, well, this is a New Testament thing. All those references to the wilderness are Old Testament, which I just showed it was not. But you need to, you need that body of believers there. You need that, and that might be true for some people. I just know it wasn't for us. So, how do you reintegrate? Also, like to point out that there were some things happening, there were some prophetic words given, and then the organization started to press in, and we're gonna wrangle up all these prophets, and we're gonna get them under our umbrella, and we're gonna we're gonna vet. Because and I'll tell you what it was. There people had prophetic words that Donald Trump was gonna be a two-term president.
SPEAKER_01:That's what the word was. Donald Trump was gonna be a two two-term president, and after uh Joe Biden was installed.
SPEAKER_02:Mao, we're gonna get under this leadership, we're gonna get who was it? Oh, yeah, Michael Brown. Under Michael Brown is oversee this this body of prophets, which again, if you read Old Testament, school of the prophets was the ones getting in trouble. It was Elijah and Elisha that was getting them out. Right. So everybody wants to have a school of prophets. Yeah, uh they were the the they were kind of Timu, you know, versus Rolex. But they want to have this big thing. Well, I said it back then. You go back and listen to four years ago, you know, part of the problems with uh that segment of the body of Christ was under Michael Brown's leadership. So now you're just gonna crap on anybody that won't bat what that won't uh bend the knee to it. And guess what? Jeremiah Johnson bent the knee 100%. So it's like I told some other people, man, I love the guy, pray for him. I am thankful for every everything that ever ministered to me. Shared some of those things with you when when right when we were writing the book and stuff, and I'm going, uh so I'm I'm thankful for that. I want nothing but the best for that guy.
SPEAKER_01:But if we're going to be honest, that lets me know that's not a guy you can go into battle with. Right.
SPEAKER_02:There was a handful of people that said, you can keep your organization. The Lord said what the Lord said. And these are people I don't even like their style, but I respect them because of what they said and the fact that they held their ground and said, no, this is what the Lord said. And I'm not bowing the knee to you or some new organizations just so I can fit in and not be blacklisted.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. There's once again, I think there's still the the idea that for a lot of folks, we're we're reading the Bible through the lens and filter of of church. Yeah. And and that's that's really hard to get away from. Um, and uh I'm I'm thankful that that uh when I got saved, uh God didn't let me get too far down that rabbit hole. Uh that uh he kept me away from that. Um what I remember looking at John Bevere's book, Victory in the Wilderness, if I remember correctly, his was his was more about uh dry spells and not hearing from God for a while. Uh it wasn't necessarily about I I wouldn't have called it the wilderness, um, but it was more about those those times where you don't hear from God for a while. Uh and that's where you that's where you need your the body of Christ. That's where you need the fellowship of believers and stuff like that. And and I can get that. I I can see that. Yeah, for sure. Um but uh but the wilderness is is a real thing. It's it's it's scriptural, uh, it's it's biblical. And when we reintegrate, first thing that went through my head as I was thinking on that, my wife shared that conversation with me. My wife's got probably one of the biggest hearts I I've ever seen. Um, she doesn't she doesn't think that there's any ill will or anything in anybody when she's talking to them. So to get that pushback kind of threw her off guard a little bit. Um but one of the things that went through my mind as I was mulling that over in my head is like, oh, you know, when you're reintegrating, God calls you out of the wilderness, puts you back in a congregation. He's gonna put you where you need you, and they're not gonna put you in some congregation that don't believe it. And as soon as I heard that in my mind, uh, I heard another voice say, Well, what I you know, I'll put you where I want to put you. Yeah. And I said, okay. That that blew my mind. That I kind of, you know, which I don't know why I did, uh, but that that kind of threw me for a loop there. And I said, Wow, okay. So how do we deal with that? And really the short answer is uh you don't deal with it. You just simply keep on walking. Um, you simply keep on walking with the Lord and let Him deal with all that. Um maybe the body of Christ uh needs folks who have come to the wilderness.
SPEAKER_02:There you go.
SPEAKER_00:You know, they need folks who have come to the wilderness and re-enter their congregation. Uh number one, uh show that the wilderness is for real. Number two, show that um a relationship with Jesus is real uh and kingdom is real. Because I think we've well we beat this horse dead. Um there's more there's more relationship with church spoken on Sunday uh than there is kingdom. Uh and oh yeah. Yeah, and we we've got to get back to that kingdom thinking inside the the four walls of the congregation. And it's not gonna it's probably not gonna happen unless folks walk the walk in the wilderness first.
SPEAKER_02:I think because there's been a change, there's been a wake-up call issued, there's been a message sent to the body of Christ, especially here in the West, uh starting with COVID.
SPEAKER_01:That being said, those that have ears to hear, let them hear.
SPEAKER_02:But sometimes you get sent into hostile territory, right? If you're spreading the kingdom message, you're by default almost always going to go to an extent where the kingdom is not, or at least not a full manifestation of the kingdom. And your job is there, let's say, you know, somebody's kind of getting a partial uh picture of it, your or a partial experience of the kingdom, you're there to help give a fuller experience of the kingdom and a fuller view. And guess what? He's going to send some other people uh around that path so that you can get a fuller experience of the kingdom as well. As that happens, talking talking about the Lord sending a message, you look when Jesus sends a message to the churches over in the churches over in Asia and in the book of Revelation. You need to do this, and if you do this, this is going to go well. And if you don't do this, then this is not going to go well. There's going to be consequences either way. Now, who knows? Those that are coming out of the wilderness and getting sent back into congregations might be that last measure of grace that is extended to those bodies to see how they treat people. As somebody who's coming in with a message about relationship and kingdom, and how, you know, we just went through a wake-up call, several wake-up calls. Let's talk in the last five years here. You can consider it six, however you want to count it.
SPEAKER_01:2020, COVID-19. Churches shut down. You could have a whole discussion about that.
SPEAKER_02:Also let you know who kaltows to the government and who kaltows to God. It caused people to not only buy up a whole bunch of stuff from Lowe's and Home Depot and start uh start doing home repair and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00:Buy out on the paper.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, lumber went through the roof, man. You you try and have a little home repair project or something like that, home renovation. Man, that lumber went through the roof. Yeah. So big reason I put off redoing my back deck until this year was like, eh, I could do it. No, I'm gonna wait until lumber prices come down. So you had that. You also have in a positive way, you have the revival over in Kentucky. That's a wake-up call. Yeah, it is. Just trying to remember the name of it. I keep wanting to say Kane Ridge. That Cain Ridge is over 150 years ago. But it have they have the college over in Kentucky. And when we were over there on the over there, we we were less than an hour away when we recorded that episode uh over in Bardstown, Kentucky. That's where I got that maker's mark at. Anyway, the uh they also had Elijah Craig's Bible there. That was amazing. The father of bourbon was a preacher and had his Bible. He had exacting standards. At least what they say was his Bible. Makes for a good story. And then you have this year, and I've I've been thinking about this, and I'm not trying to validate, but you know, for the past couple years, we go over to uh Ernie and Verlinda's church over there in Carbondale, and Dan Blackshire would be over there, kind of how we met. And uh, you know, people had words for the new year coming in. And usually my words are not as nice as everybody else's words. They're usually fairly serious. But I remember uh the word going in for 2025 is basically you're gonna get what you prayed for, but it's gonna hurt. Uh I look back at those to see, hey, was I off or was it on? Well, and that one, and it was about Mary, you know what um Simeon tells Mary, yes, the the thoughts of many are going to be revealed, and a sword's gonna pierce your heart. So this idea that, man, uh we're gonna see fulfillment, but it's not gonna be without pain. And then you see Charlie Kirk get assassinated. I've been thinking about that.
SPEAKER_01:I'm like, man, not how I thought I thought it'd be financial. Right.
SPEAKER_00:And not that there wasn't some of that, but anyway, uh the the Lord's been I don't think we're done. I don't think we've seen the totality of the fallout on that yet.
SPEAKER_02:And I don't think we have either. Yeah. It's gonna manifest as far as the fulfillment of what he has said, what the church has been praying for, especially the remnant of the church has been praying for, and you're gonna see it, but it is not gonna be without pain, it is not gonna be without discipline, it is not gonna be without consequence, but it will be glorious. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But getting there is not gonna be Joel Osteen.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we've uh we've been praying for judgment for a long time, but what we forget is that judgment starts in the house of the Lord. Uh, and that can be a this can be a hard lesson for us. Uh, like you said, it's it's gonna hurt. Um, it's going to um it's gonna pierce the heart because it's gonna destroy some doctrines, it's gonna destroy some theology, it's gonna destroy some of those uh foundational beliefs. Notice I don't say foundational truths, but it's gonna destroy some of those foundational beliefs that we've held on to for a great many years. Um and then just to realize that wow, um maybe some of those things weren't as as true as we thought they were, um, because they were traditions instead of uh instead of scripture. Um and that's what's gonna be painful for us. Um it's gonna be painful because because that's uh it hits in the heart. You know, that hit that hits right in the backyard, that hit it hits home. It's also gonna be painful because it's gonna it's gonna hit our ego. Um very much so. We're gonna see a lot of pride um come to the surface, which it needs to, needs to come to the surface so it can be dealt with. But that's gonna be a painful process, um, but a very needful process as well. So so yeah, judgment starts in the house of the Lord. Uh and and and we need some of that. Um but that the house of God also needs um he needs folks in there uh not just talking about relationship with Jesus, but also demonstrating that. Amen. And showing what it looks like, um, and so that others can see it. Um the only way that folks will see that there's a difference between uh having a relationship with Jesus and having a relationship with church is to actually see what that relationship with Jesus looks like uh in in someone else's life. Um and then they'll want that. At least that's my belief anyway. Um so if it's gonna, if if it takes us or anyone else to come out of the wilderness and to take a few fiery darts, uh, you know, uh to establish that, to to show that, to demonstrate that, then that's not that it's not that big a deal. That's that's easy.
SPEAKER_02:And and it and as people that have come out, and you've been very active at times, um in different churches and stuff, uh with me, it's been a little bit more targeted. And and this is what I'm saying, this just to show you all that it doesn't look the same for everybody. Right. But there's about three or four churches that I can go in and step in at any time, and I'm welcome there. Um if I'm there and I'm not tooting my own horn, but usually there the Lord has some strategy for me going in there. Right. But I'm not there all the time. It's like, hey, you need to go over here. All right, man, I have that Sunday off. I usually work Sundays. Um, I got that Sunday off. Guess I'll go. And it will be evident within an hour, usually within 15 to 30 minutes, while I'm supposed to be there.
SPEAKER_01:So I have a good relationship with uh the pastors of those churches. And you know, some of them have trust me to preach at their churches. Am I looking to do so? No.
SPEAKER_02:I'd rather go out and find me a trail to hike and talk to the Lord on that thing and go out, sit my butt in a kayak and get out on on a lake and talk to the Lord there.
SPEAKER_01:That's just the way I am. That's it it works better.
SPEAKER_02:But let me tell you, you have to be a good steward of what God has entrusted you with. So if He sends you, like when I when Michael Ward come up and gave me that message, and I'm just like crap. Having me a good time here in the wilderness, Lord, why are you messing with me? I'll be obedient, but don't expect me to like it. I love you. Me and people, sometimes we have our ways. The the thing is, you got to be a good steward of it, though. You gotta be a good steward. If the Lord is is telling you to go back into a body after you've been out in the wilderness, uh yeah, you're going to catch some of those darts. But if he has told you to go, you go.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Yeah, you you have to go back in just as willingly as you went out.
SPEAKER_02:Um and that's and that's probably why, because I was kicking and screaming going out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um I think the first time the first time I didn't have I went out re relatively easily. Um and some of that was because because I was tired. Uh I wasn't necessarily fed up or anything, but I was just I was tired and I knew I knew I had come about as far as I could go where I was at. So I knew I knew there was something up. And that was it was time to leave. And God showed me how I was gonna go and why. And the the big thing was the why. Not leaving out of indifference, not leaving out of any type of malice or animosity. We were leaving because I'm calling you to somewhere different. Um, and that was very, very, very, very important. I had uh one of the sisters in the church, one of the Sunday school teachers, um actually come and and actually did come and talk to me, uh, the first church that I got called out of the wilderness. She comes, she told me, I really wish you wouldn't go. This is uh we need you here, and and this this kind of big speech, you know. And it was very, very heartfelt by finally, and and she she even laid out a couple of scriptures about how leaving the church isn't right. You know, the the main one, you know, was Hebrews 10 and 25. Uh forsake not forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. And some are in the habit of doing I think that's the chapter and verse. But anyway, and so finally I I explained to her, I said, you know, I said, I feel you. I understand what what you're saying to me. I said, but I've got a word from the Lord to do this. By you telling me to stay here, by you wanting me to stay here, by you using scripture to to keep me here. I said, You're you're basically asking me to go against God and doing something. I said, I can't do that. I said, I know that you don't want me to do that if that's what it means. And uh you can see the look on her face immediately. She's like, No, that's not what I want you to do. Yeah. Um, if God has called you somewhere, uh, it's okay to let people know that God's doing that and hopefully they're they're they'll get on board with it. This person did. She was a whole lot more understanding once she understood that that her begging me to stay was actually causing me and tempting me to go against God's word. Yeah. Yeah. And we got along, we got along fine after that.
SPEAKER_02:Hey everybody, thanks for listening. We are going to continue this discussion on our next episode, Returning from the Wilderness 2. You can always check us out at woefoyo.org or subscribe on Apple Podcast Spotify, or even check us out on YouTube. Remember, folks, if you're going to grow, you got a Woe FOYO. Get in the word for yourself.