Through the Desert

There’s nothing comfortable about the spiritual deserts we walk through, but they are a necessary part of our formation. In this episode, Coby Duren talks about why these seasons matter for us as individuals, as spouses, as parents, and even in the workplace. It’s Holy Week, and we’re going deep.

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All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Spiritual Formation for the Family. This is a podcast of Central Baptist Church. Anybody and everybody is welcome to listen in. But we do talk about things that are specific to our church family here at Central Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Texas, where I am the family pastor. I can't remember my full title. What's my full title? Associate pastor of blah, blah, blah. I'm just kidding. Anyways, I work primarily with families, and so in doing so, kind of get to have my hand in a little bit of all of the formation process, all the way from our preschool ministry up to those folks who are about to enter into that season of their life that we know as the empty nest. And this is Holy Week, Holy Week being the week leading up to Easter Sunday. In a lot of Protestant circles, and certainly a lot of Baptist circles, Easter Sunday has a huge emphasis. Palm Sunday has a little bit of an emphasis. Sometimes in in one church it may have more than another, but Holy Week is often something that gets forgotten. And uh and I take that back. I need to be more careful how I say that. In Protestant circles, Holy Week is still a big deal. And in some Baptist circles they are, but you do see it kind of forgotten. And so uh at the time of this uh recording, it is Holy Tuesday, and uh we have put out something for our families, uh, a holy week guide. This is the second year that we've done it. So we hope that you guys are enjoying that holy week guide. This week we're talking about the great commandment and the second great commandment, uh, the first being to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second one to love your neighbor as yourself, and how the Christian life is characterized by a life of love. It's not characterized by a life of judgment, a life of wrath, a life of condemnation, but rather a life of love in and through and empowered by Jesus Christ and the love that He has for us. And so that's kind of where we're we're focusing today as we prepare for Easter Sunday. But we have a lot of things lined out that I hope would be good and beneficial for our folks. Uh so come hang out with us tomorrow night for our midweek services. We have a Maundy Thursday service that starts at 6 30. We got a uh uh we're gonna do a Passover meal presentation at 6 before that. Um there in the student building. And then on Friday, we have our Good Friday service. No activity Saturday, and then Sunday back, Sunday we're coming back, excuse me, Monday morning. Good grief. Sunday, we are coming back, Sunday morning, uh, with two services. Uh one at 9 and the other one at 10.30. Actually, I think I got those times wrong. Al, what time we got that first service on Sunday morning? Is it 8:30? 845. Good grief. I was I got it wrong twice. 845, early service, 10:30, will be our second service. I want to utilize this episode, though, to talk about a concept of spiritual formation that we have emphasized since uh Ash Wednesday, uh, which was about seven weeks ago. And, you know, uh we talk about Holy Week not being practiced too much among Baptists, like uh the idea of the season of Lent and Ash Wednesday certainly not practiced very much among Baptists. Um why? I I don't really there's not a good reason for it. I do think that there is some fear that it sounds too Catholic, but I mean it predates the Roman Catholic Church by literal centuries and centuries. So uh the idea that this is just some sort of like Roman Catholic thing is is not a good assessment of what uh Ash Wednesday is and what the Linton season is. Uh but Lent is essentially a 40-day period. You don't count the Sundays. So we started this again right at about 40 days ago, but you don't count the Sundays uh that are going to it, uh that that lead up to it. But it's it's starting on Ash Wednesday all the way through Easter Sunday. You fast and you do certain practices for six days a week, and then on Sunday you can break from your fast and specific practices to experience a Sabbath rest and then pick those uh disciplines and fasting back up on Monday, fast you know, six days and so on and so forth. And so on Wednesday nights we've done a series called Into the Desert. Uh it's a Lenten series. We actually utilized uh some curriculum from Luxio 365 and uh had to make it our own because they certainly have a leaning and a bent uh in a direction that kind of breaks from our tradition a little bit. Uh not that it's in a bad way by any means, but we do want to make sure that we communicate uh to our people in ways that we can understand without causing a lot of confusion and things of that nature. So, you know, we we did this Linton series and it's been really interesting. And I want to tell you about one of the takeaways in my own life uh as we get out of the Linton series, as we are exiting the Linton series, moving towards Easter Sunday, uh, but it's the concept of wilderness. And it's something that you're gonna hear a lot about in Christian circles, like going into the wilderness and things like that. But I want to like clearly define what I think you know wilderness ought to symbolize in our life. Um, and I want to utilize it just using some geographical terms, right? Uh in student ministry for years, going to camping. By the way, like I'm still going to camp and still leading student mission trips, and this will probably be my last summer of doing that, and there's a kind of a bittersweet angle to that, and I'll tell you why in just a second. But as we go into camp, there is this certain expectation for God to move. Uh, the amount of prayer, the amount of time, the amount of uh just energy that is kind of put into that space, uh, the lack of distractions, the emphasis on scripture and worship and community, like all these things create an environment uh for the Holy Spirit to move. And I'm not saying that the Holy Spirit can't move in other environments. What I am saying is that these types of spaces really kind of put us, uh, our physical bodies in a space to where we can receive what the Holy Spirit may have been wanting to do in our life for quite some time. And so, like getting to go and do that with teenagers all these years, man, it has been a it has been a blast and an honor of mine. And one of the reasons that's bittersweet for me is because teenagers have a way of expressing their faith, and they have a way of expressing their life story and have a way of doing community together. That like when it's done, like when you get into that camp setting and they're undistracted and they're not trying to impress people and stuff like that, it is raw, it's unfiltered, and it's beautiful. Like it's hard to explain. Like you rarely will see things, things like that coming from adults. I'm not saying that doesn't happen. Like I have seen it from adults. Uh I've I've witnessed it in my own home on a Sunday afternoon in home group. But it's just more rare because I think uh as we as adults get older and our castles, I'm gonna call it, and essentially what I'm saying about that is I'm just talking about our lives. Like we as adults, as our castles get larger and more intricate, we get very intimidated. I'm very intimidated by letting people in to see what's behind the castle walls. And you get a teenager at that camp setting when things are when the spirit is moving, and man, the walls come tumbling down, and there's just something beautiful remaining. And uh it brings us to this concept of a mountaintop experience, essentially. Uh you may have heard about like the spiritual highs of a student ministry camp or a preteen camp or something like that. And sometimes you know, people talk about them in a negative way. I'm just here to say, like, there you like, don't ever talk negatively about a spiritual high. Uh the spiritual high represents a mountaintop experience. Just recently, I was going, uh I went on a ski trip with my family and some other families from the church, and you know, going up to the mountain, experiencing like that view from the peak, so to speak. Uh, man, it is gorgeous. But like I being up there and embracing all that, I know that I'm gonna have to come down from that mountain. And in coming down from the mountain, that's really kind of where life happens. Uh up there on the top, it's kind of this idealized uh, and it is beautiful, and I think that it is gonna be our reality in heaven. I want to be very clear about that. But as long as there still is life in this mortal flesh of mine, like the real work is gonna happen down in the valley. Uh that's where the vegetation grows. The vegetation doesn't grow on the peak, it grows in the valleys. And so, you know, like using that same imagery, we come down into the valleys, and there's gonna be these seasons where uh the valleys are very difficult, but there's still vegetation around us, and there's things to eat and stuff of that nature. But then you have these other types of land that just seem like the wilderness, and it's a whole lot harder to find food, it's a whole lot harder to um to find joy in the little things, or peace maybe in the little things. But yet God leads us in those areas. Now, why do I say God leads us in those areas? Because that's where the Father sent the Son. And if the Father's gonna send the Son into the wilderness before the Son started his earthly ministry, then you can rest assured that that's gonna be a part of our formation journey as well, too, because our formation journey ought to emulate uh the, excuse me, our our formation journey ought to uh to simulate uh the life of the son as much as we possibly can. And so yeah, again, like there's gonna be times in the valley where we're like we're in, you know, this field that is ripe and and and we're receiving the the fruits of our labor. And even though the labor might be hard, it's still like, it's still this, you know, this concept of like, okay, like I'm I'm able to eat and I'm able to feast, and there's a lot of peace here, and there's a lot of hope here, and and things like that. I think of Psalm 23, where you have uh, you know, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul. The green pastures and the still waters, like those are still things that we're experiencing in the valley, uh, but they're they're comfort-based, not risk-based, not um, you know, something. Yeah, I like that terminology. They are comfort-based, not risk-based. But then you move away from those things, and you even move away from it in Psalm 23. Again, let me repeat, starting from the top, it says, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul. And then it like takes this turn. It says, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and loving kindness shall follow me all the days of my life. So you move from this like place of comfort in the Psalm, the green pastures, the still waters, into this place of risk, the valley of the shadow of death, where the spiritual vegetation seems sparse, you know, sparse. And yet here the psalmist is saying, I'm gonna fear no evil here. And I don't know if that's the testimony that all of us can say. I know that certainly I fear plenty of evil. I'm still in my formation journey of moving from very much afraid to courageous to fearless. And those are three categories, right? Three different categories, because courage can only exist when fear is present. Uh but I do believe that one day we will all stand fearless before the throne. Now I think that there's probably people that are alive today that are for the most part pretty fearless. One thing I will say on that note, and I don't want to diverge too much away from our topic of today, uh, is that fear only becomes a sin when it keeps us from taking the next step. I just want to encourage you with that. So if you're a person that has a lot of fear in your life and that fear is weighing you down and you feel ashamed about that, just know that God is not ashamed of you and he's not disappointed in you. Uh are you taking the next step? That's determining if that fear is sin or not. And so, you know, just a little blurb there for you. But, anyways, all that to say, you know, we move through the valley of the shadow of death, and like I and like I said, like Jesus Himself went out into the wilderness for 40 days. And so all that to say, like that's just kind of giving you some like verbiage, you know, uh, mountaintop experience, valley, but with vegetation, and then you have the the wilderness seasons where things are just a lot harder, and our fears become a little bit more pronounced, where like they're just kind of put in front of us. Our struggles with our identity in Christ become more pronounced, where they're just kind of put there in front of us. But the beauty of the wilderness is that you can experience probably more formation quicker in the wilderness than you certainly can on the mountaintops, and you certainly can even in the places of great vegetation. Why? Because it's those places where we learn to depend on God alone. We learn his character and we learn his will for us, we learn his love for us. We learn all these things that he has towards us, and we learn that he doesn't turn away. That at no point in time is he disappointed in us. And I will say this like some people might say, like, well, Kobe, what about when we sin? I don't think that God is disappointed in you when you sin. Why? Because disappointment seems to suggest some level of surprise that he didn't see that coming. Guys, God knows what's in your heart, and he is choosing in this moment to love you anyways, because that's his nature, that's his character towards you. And so there's not disappointment, there's not shame there. There's just a father, like, can we uh can we do things that are certainly against his will? Yes, but does that mean that we are any less receiving his grace, love, and mercy at the time? Of course not, no. He doesn't turn away from us. And so in the wilderness, like we learn like that character of God, because we have all these other things that we lean on stripped away. Um it might even be spiritual practices, you know, things that that were once really good for us, like maybe worship music is your thing where you just like you run to worship music, but it's like, hey, this worship music has become a distraction for you from actually experiencing uh uh the presence of God in your life that he wants to provide for you. And so sometimes he has to take us out in the wilderness, you know, to break us from the things that are good, but that we've come to lean on too much without just leaning on him. And so I go to a passage of scripture uh very quickly, uh Galatians chapter one, uh and I'll start in verse. I'll start in verse fourteen. This is Paul talking. Galatians chapter one, verse fourteen, it says, And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age, among my people, so extremely jealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus. Now check this out, verse 18. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. Three years. So Paul's saying, like, hey, like he has we we have documented the Damascus Road episode, right? Um we we we understand all that, and he says, like, I didn't go and consult with anyone at that time. I didn't go find the other apostles, I didn't go to Jerusalem or anything like that. I went out to Arabia, to the wilderness, to the desert. He says, and then I returned again to Damascus. And then he gives us timeline. He says it's three years from the time of his conversion to the time that he actually goes to Jerusalem to visit with the other apostles. Three years in the wilderness. Three years where he, by his own acknowledgement, acknowledged, like, hey, I didn't go and consult with other people. I went and learned about God. Now, I do think we need to be careful with that. I think that Paul's calling and Paul's journey does not exactly mirror the journey of other people in today's time. I think that other people and consulting with other people is a huge deal. But we got to understand this too. Sometimes consulting with other people becomes a crutch as well, too, that God needs to take away for a time so that way we can learn to listen to him. That way we can learn to obey him. That way we can learn to seek out his wisdom in other ways, other than just constantly looking to people. How do I see this manifested so much today? I am a huge advocate for therapy. I want to be very clear about that. My counselor, um, Richard Carey uh at Living Well in Tyler, Texas, I adore the man. I am very thankful for him. I'm thankful that God brought us together. Um and and, you know, I I am I'm a huge therapy fan. But one of the things that I see people doing is that like this unwillingness to make any kind of decision, uh, to move forward with anything, uh, to process anything without the help of a therapist. And I think that that can be incredibly detrimental because like at some point in time, I'm just like, hey man, like, is that therapist's name Jesus Christ? Is that therapist's name the Holy Spirit? Is that that therapist's name the Father? Uh, the Father of heaven and of earth? If the answer is no, then it's like, okay, well, like you're kind of treating that therapist that way. Like they are your moral compass, like they are your uh your Holy Spirit guiding you and leading you. And I think that we have to be careful there. And so, you know, again, here is Paul who's just like, hey, I didn't go do anything with anybody. That's went away for three years. I think we gotta be careful for that because I do think that the the wisdom and the guidance and the mentorship of other people is huge. But it it resonates with me what Paul is saying here, because what does Paul do? Like before the spotlight gets turned on him, he's just gotta go get away. And he's gotta learn who God is, how to listen to his voice, obey, understand, work through his own thoughts, his own fleshly desires, be repentant in probably more ways than one. He's gotta go and kind of like figure all that stuff out before he goes and puts himself in this leadership role, actually pursuing the calling that Jesus put on his life. Jesus called him to be a minister of the Gentiles three years before Jerusalem, before he went back to Jerusalem. But for three years, Paul went out into the wilderness, he went out into the desert with the Lord and just learned, okay, this is this is who God is, this is who I am. And he allowed God to form him. And this gets to so many things when it comes to the family. Number one, let's just talk about what it means for us as like parents and married people. Uh oftentimes, you know, we we jump into marriages without being the type of people that are formed enough to actually be in a self-giving, self-sacrificial marriage relationship with somebody else. And so if we don't do the work before our marriage, and so for those of you who are single right now, man, like do the work. Go into the desert of singleness, go into the desert of preparation so that way you can actually present yourself to your one-day spouse as somebody who is formed enough and ready to actually give sacrificially and with that self-giving love of Jesus Christ. But if you're not in that space, then you just have to understand that like there's gonna be desert times in your marriage, wilderness times in your marriage, where you both are gonna have to learn to love without boundaries, to love uh unconditionally, to love in a self-giving way, again, like Jesus. And so, like when marriage comes and it gets hard after that kind of honeymoon phase gets over, you know, sometime between you know one and two years after you, you know, meet the person or begin the relationship, you know, like a lot of people freak out because they're just like, oh my gosh, like our marriage sucks, you know, or our marriage is like like our marriage is falling apart. I chose the wrong person. Like, no, you didn't. You just gotta be in, you gotta hang out in the wilderness for a while. You gotta get some sin out of you that is keeping you from loving your spouse. I've got to get some sin out of me that's keeping me from loving my spouse. Like, we have got to do that, and that's gonna be something that takes time. And so just because you're going through a struggle doesn't mean that you chose the wrong person or that your entire relationship has been a lie or that you uh, you know, you have to start all over. It's like, no, you're not starting over. You're just like, you're getting some stuff out of there and you're learning how to depend on God and love each other well. Man, what does it look like in our parenting? Man, there's no such thing as a perfect parent, right? Like the father is the perfect parent for us. But there's no such thing as a perfect parent. And so we have to understand there's gonna be seasons in raising our kids where we're just like, we don't have the answers, and we're struggling, and we're just like, man, like what happened to this sweet kid, you know, that I loved and adored? Like, who is this, you know, this Hellion now that is invaded my house? It's like, man, you gotta learn, and we've got to go through those wilderness seasons to stop depending on all these little tricks and you know, little things that we do, and and learn to depend on the love and the character of God, the guidance of God, the strength of God, the perseverance and resilience of God in those moments to get us through those times. Man, what does it mean for our kids? It means that our kids, man, we've got to be careful about putting them on platforms too soon. Oh, by the way, let's talk about platforms for us as adults before we even talk about our kids. You know, like at work and stuff like that, we are so quick, whether our work is ministry, like myself, or our work is somewhere in the secular world, or our work is in a parachurch organization, or our work is for a nonprofit or whatever the case may be. Like we want to climb the ladder so quickly, but like the reality of it is this right here that if we climb the ladder without the proper formation, without the proper wilderness seasons, we are setting ourselves up for failure. And you might be saying, well, God would never put me in a position that he didn't want me to be in. And it's like, well, you might have forced the door open. Because one thing that we seem to know about God pretty clearly from Scripture is that he is a gentleman. And if we simply refuse to listen to his guidance and his shepherding, then yeah, like we will find ourselves in rooms, indoors, uh, that we forced open on our own will and not a part of his will at all. And so I think oftentimes like when people get that promotion or when we get that, you know, that thing that we really want, and it ends up being a nightmare for us, it's just like, hey, we got to take a step back, and maybe you remove yourself from that role, or maybe you don't. But regardless if you if you stay in the role or not, you just know that there's going to be a wilderness season ahead of you of preparation and formation that ideally should have taken place before the promotion, before the new thing. But here you are, can't go back now, type thing. And it's like, all right, like let's start working through this wilderness season now. And so like let's talk about that with our kids too. You know, I see a lot of parents like in working with the church, uh, there's a lot of parents who like their kid becomes a Christian and maybe they can sing, or their kid becomes a Christian and maybe they you know have like some sort of gift of teaching, or their kid becomes a Christian and they they have this gift or that gift or whatever. And and oftentimes, like the gifts that the parents are coming to me with are gifts that are gonna put them in front of people or put them in some type of leadership role or something like that. The reality of is this right here, like, man, your kids got to go through a wilderness season first. They can't just be thrust into the spotlight. The spotlight is bright, and if they're not ready for it, it's gonna burn them instead of shine on them. Or it's gonna burn them as it shines on them. And so we go and help lead and guide our kids through wilderness seasons. Man, when they start going through hardships, like don't rush to relieve the hardship from your child. God may be using that to help them grow in their dependence on Him, to help them grow in their ability to understand His will and walk in wisdom and so on and so forth. And so it's our responsibility to walk with them through that, but maybe not necessarily rescue them from that. And I see a lot of parents that are that are kind of willing to do that or wanting to do that. And the other thing I would just say is this right here, too, like encourage, you know, a godly ambition in your child, but just don't rush it. You know, don't don't don't put them in that place where that they're gonna be platformed too quickly, because we do. We have to make sure that our soul and our heart and our mind is well formed before the the position of power and things like that come. So this theme of wilderness is just something that has been very heavy on my mind uh for quite some time now, even before Lent started. Um and your wilderness seasons may last three years, they may last two years, they may last one month, they may last ten years, who knows? Uh if you look at the the uh the diaries of Teresa of Calcutta, Mother Teresa, uh it seems like her wilderness seasons lasted maybe decades. Uh it's not for us to say, hey, I'm done with the wilderness. It's up for God to say, hey, you have learned what you needed to learn, you've obeyed where you've needed to obey, you have been formed in the way that you've needed to be formed, and now, you know, with his will and his timing, we can exit those wilderness seasons. So just my final word of encouragement. If you're going through a wilderness season, it stinks. But it's also a blessing. It's more of a blessing than it is a curse. In fact, it's not a curse at all. It's just it's just hard. It's just hard. You know, the book of Hebrews talks about, uh, Hebrews chapter 12 talks about that in the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. In the wilderness seasons, it is a type of discipline. You know, it may not be like uh a direct discipline against some sin, but it is a type of discipline where God is putting us through those uh formation fires. And so I would just say, like, as best as you can, and maybe you just need to pray about this. Maybe the prayer is as simple as like, hey God, can you make me appreciate can you help me appreciate where I'm at today? Can you help me appreciate this wilderness? Um if you're in a place of comfort, then man, like, praise God for it. Just like, God, thank you for this place of comfort. And when the wilderness comes, you know, may I be ready for it. Without fear, without that heavy anticipation, or, you know, um thinking too far ahead. Just like rest where God has you right now. But if you're in the season, or your child is in the season, or your spouse is in that season, don't rush it. Instead, consider it a time to be intimate with our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, uh, to learn the goodness and the mercies of the Father, and to learn that gentle direction of the Holy Spirit that he provides for us as we go. So that's just a word that's kind of been on my mind. Hopefully it was good for you. Old Paul himself spent three years, this word we don't really know what was going on before he returned to Jerusalem. And he had a specific calling on his life to go be the apostle to the Gentiles. But there had to be formation that took place first. It's the same way with our lives. All right, guys, thanks for another episode of spiritual formation for the family. Uh, we look forward to getting back and producing these a little bit more frequently as well. We'll see you.