The Wilderness

Every path to glory runs through one. You may have called it a hard season, a difficult stretch, or simply the longest year of your life — but Scripture calls it by its name: the wilderness. Jacob wrestled in one. Israel wandered through one for forty years. Jesus was led into one by the very Spirit that had just descended upon Him. And in Deuteronomy 8:2, Moses looked back over forty years and told us exactly what the wilderness was for — to humble, to prove, and to reveal what is in the heart. This week on Paths to Glory, we spend time in the wilderness — not because it is comfortable, but because what happens there is too important to misunderstand. If you are in one right now, this episode is for you.

If you’re enjoying Paths to Glory, be sure to check out our two other podcasts!

Paths to Glory Kenya shares powerful stories of faith and transformation from the heart of Africa — voices of hope, revival, and purpose.

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The song "Paths to Glory" created with Udio and written by Roy Allison IV.

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Transcript

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Everyone has a story. That story is your path. A path filled with trials, triumphs, transformations, and miracles. Welcome to Paths to Glory, where we dive deep into the extraordinary narratives of those who have had their darkest moments, turned into beacons of hope. Each episode unveils the wrong powerful stories of redemption and remove, showcasing the awesome power of God. Inspired and reminded. But no path is beyond redemption. Now join us and let these powerful stories illuminate your own. You may not have called it by its name when you were in it. You may have called it a season, or a hard time, or a period of uncertainty, or simply the worst stretch of your life. But if you've been in it, and most people who are honest will tell you they have, you know the feeling of it. Ground beneath you felt unsteady, the path ahead was unclear, the things you had leaned on for comfort and direction seemed to have gone quiet, and you were left standing in the middle of something vast and unfamiliar, wondering how long it would last and whether you would come out on the other side as the same person who went in. In the language of Scripture, that place has a name. It's called the Wilderness. And I want to spend some time there today. Not because the wilderness is a pleasant subject, but because I'm convinced that most people who are in one right now do not fully understand what it is. And what you do not understand, you cannot navigate. What you cannot navigate, you simply endure. Surviving the wilderness rather than being transformed by it. And that's a tragedy. Because the wilderness in the hands of God is not punishment, it's preparation. And there is a significant difference between those two things. Look at the lives that Scripture follows most closely. The ones God chose to carry the most weight, to walk the most important paths, to leave the deepest marks on human history. Not one of them arrived at their destiny without first passing through a wilderness. Not a single one. Jacob spent a night wrestling alone in the dark beside the river Jabok. A wilderness moment, if there ever was one, a night of struggle so intense that by morning he was limping. And when the sun rose, he had a new name. The man who went into the dark as Jacob came out the other side as Israel. The limp stayed with him for the rest of his life. But so did the blessing. The wilderness did not break Jacob. It broke something in Jacob that needed to be broken. And what was left standing was something God could actually use. Israel wandered for forty years. Forty years in the desert, in the heat, between Egypt and the Promised Land. From where we stand it looks like a long time. And it was. But Moses, near the end of his life, looked back over those forty years and said something to the people that I want you to hear carefully. He said in the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, the second verse, and thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee and to prove thee, and to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. Read that again slowly. God led them through the wilderness. He was not absent during it. He was not watching from a distance, waiting for it to be over. He led them through it deliberately, purposely, with specific intentions. To humble them, to prove them, to know what was in their hearts. The wilderness was not an obstacle between Egypt and Canaan. The wilderness was the curriculum. The promised land was not just a destination, it was a graduation. And then there's Jesus. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Matthew 4, verse 1, not driven, not lost, led. The same spirit that had just descended upon him in power was the same spirit that led him into forty days of fasting, isolation, and the most direct confrontation with the enemy recorded in the Gospels. If the wilderness was good enough to be part of the preparation of Jesus, I want you to think very carefully before you decide that your wilderness is evidence that God has forgotten you. He has not forgotten you. He led you there. Now, this raises the question that most people are actually asking when they talk about the wilderness, even if they do not phrase it this way. They are not asking what the wilderness is, they already know what it feels like. What they are really asking is why? Why this? Why now? Why me? Why does the path to the thing God promised have to run through a place this difficult? And Moses gives us the answer in that same verse. If we are willing to receive it, to humble thee, to prove thee, to know what is in thine heart. Those are three things that only the wilderness can produce, and they are the three things that are absolutely necessary in a person before God can trust them with what He has prepared for them. Humility is not something that can be manufactured in comfortable circumstances. You can't decide to be humble and then arrange your life in such a way that everything confirms how well you are doing. Humility, the real kind, the lasting kind, the kind that stays with you long after the difficult season is over, comes from being brought to the end of your own resources and discovering that God's worth sufficient. It comes from reaching for something you have always been able to reach and finding it's not there. It comes from the moment when you stop performing and simply ask for help. The wilderness is where that moment happens, and the people who come out the other side of it with humility is a person God can place in front of other people without worrying about what pride is going to do to the work. Proving is a word we do not use much anymore. In its original sense it means to test, to put something under pressure to find out whether it holds. The wilderness proves you. It puts weight on things you believe to find out, whether they actually support you when everything else is stripped away. You may have confessed faith for years in the comfortable seasons. The wilderness is where you find out whether that faith is structural or decorative, whether it is load bearing, whether it can hold the weight of a season where nothing is going the way you expected, and the answer you have been waiting for has not arrived, and the silence of God feels louder than anything else in the room. The person who comes out of the wilderness still believing, not naively, not without having wrestled, but still standing. That person has been proven, and a proven faith is the most useful thing a person can bring into the work of God. And then there is the matter of the heart. God said he led Israel through the wilderness to know what was in their hearts. This is a striking thing for an omniscient God to say. He does not mean that he lacked information. He means that the wilderness is the environment in which what is in the heart becomes visible to the person themselves, not just to God. You don't always know what you are made of until something tests what you are made of. You don't always know what you truly value until the things you thought you valued are taken away, and you discover which losses actually break you. The wilderness reveals the heart. And a person who has seen their own heart, who has been honest about what they found there, who has brought it to God without defense or excuse, that person walks differently. They lead differently. They speak to others differently. Because they know something about themselves that only the wilderness could have shown them. Now, I want to speak to someone who is in one of these right now. Because I know you're listening. Not everyone who finds this podcast is on the other side of their story. Some of you are in the middle of it, in a season that has gone on longer than you expected, that has been harder than you were prepared for, that has raised questions you don't yet have answers to. And I want to say something to you directly, because I think you need to hear it. Don't waste the wilderness. I know that sounds almost offensive. When you're in pain, the last thing you want to be told is to make something of it. But I mean it in a the most practical, compassionate sense. The wilderness is producing something in you that cannot be produced any other way. And what it produces will be exactly what you need for the next place God is taking you. Every episode of this podcast, every testimony, every story, every path to glory that has been told in over 60 episodes now, runs through a wilderness. Sometimes several of them. And in every case it was the wilderness that did the work that made the rest of the story possible. The deliverance was more meaningful because of the captivity. The healing was more real because of the sickness. The restoration was more complete because of the devastation. God did not waste a single day of any of those wildernesses. And he will not waste a single day of yours. Pay attention to what he is teaching you while you're in it. Pray with more honesty than you have prayed in the comfortable seasons. Because the wilderness strips away the performances and leaves you with nothing to bring to God but yourself. And that turns out to be exactly what he was waiting for. Stay connected to the body of Christ. Israel did not wander alone, they wandered together. Temptation in a wilderness season is to withdraw, to isolate, to disappear into the difficulty and not let anyone see it. Resist that. And hold on to the promise. Whatever God spoke to you before the wilderness began, whatever word was given, whatever confirmation was made, whatever moment of clarity you experienced before everything went dark, hold on to that. Not with clenched teeth or white knuckles. Hold on to it the way you hold on to a lamp in a dark place. Not because you understand the darkness, but because the lamp is the is real and the path is real, and the one who gave you the lamp knows exactly where the path leads. The wilderness has an end. That is one of the most important things Moses said, and he said it from the other side of forty years. He said, Remember all the way the Lord led you. Past tense. The leading was real, and it brought them somewhere. The wilderness did not swallow Israel, it produced Israel, refined, humbled, proven, made ready for a land flowing with milk and honey that they would not have been prepared to inhabit if they had gone straight there from Egypt. Your wilderness will not swallow you either. It is doing something, it is making something, it is preparing you for a place and a purpose that you will not be ready to inhabit until the wilderness has finished its work. And when it ends, and it will end, you will look back from the other side of it the way Moses looked back, the way Jacob walked away from the river with a limp and a new name. The way Jesus walked out of the desert in the power of the Spirit began the ministry that changed the world. You will look back and you will understand. Not everything, perhaps, but enough. Enough to know that the wilderness was not a detour from your path to glory. It was part of it. It was always part of it. It was the part that made everything that came after possible. Remember all the way. The Lord thy God led thee. Every step of it. Even the hard ones. Especially the hard ones. He was there. He is here. And he knows the way out. You've been listening to the Paths to Glory Podcast. To contact us, send your emails to Paths to Glory Podcast at gmail.com. We all travel different paths, so it's important that we remember Proverbs 3, 5 through 6. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Our paths to glory. Thank you for joining us.