The desert is also the way

“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, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.”Deuteronomy 8:2

Reflection

There are places in life nobody would choose to visit: the desert of illness, of unemployment, of loneliness, of the marriage in crisis, of the dry faith. When we are in them, the first question is usually "God, why did You bring me here?" — as if the desert were a sign of abandonment. But Deuteronomy reveals a detail that changes everything: it was God Himself who LED the people through the desert. The desert was not a detour. It was the route.

In the desert, Israel learned what it would never learn in the comfort of Egypt or the abundance of Canaan: it learned that bread falls from heaven, that water springs from the rock, that the cloud guides by day and the fire warms by night. It learned to depend. Egypt made slaves; the desert made a people. There is a curriculum only the desert teaches — and God loves His children too much to leave them without that formation.

And if any doubt remains that the desert can be the address of someone loved by God, look at Jesus: "then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness" (Matthew 4:1). By the SPIRIT — not by mistake, not as punishment. If even the Son had His preparatory desert, yours is not wasted either: it is an antechamber. So if you are crossing a desert now, lift up your eyes: look for the daily manna, the water that springs where it should not, the quiet signs that God is still guiding. The desert has an expiration date — and one day you too will look back and say: "it was there, in that dry place, that I came to know God most".

Bible text: King James Version (public domain).