The Wilderness Cycle

Here are the notes from Friday Night Source Group. Enjoy.

Numbers 14 (English Standard Version)

²⁸⁾ Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: ²⁹⁾ your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, ³⁰⁾ not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. ³¹⁾ But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. ³²⁾ But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. ³³⁾ And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. ³⁴⁾ According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ ³⁵⁾ I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”

You might read this and say “Dude, God was pretty harsh”. Here is a picture I get in my mind. Ok, you have all these young people standing around with their eye on the last person, the very last person that according to God is the reason they were not in the promise land to begin with! Thousands upon thousand of Israelites waiting and watching as the very last person of that wicked generation is gasping for their last breath! I wonder if for the Israelites they weren’t waiting with the party favors and streamers! The very last person, the last barrier, that stands between them and entering into the land that was promised to them 40 years ago! I know the death of anyone is a sad thing, but I can’t help but think there was an enormous celebration that day!

I want to share a principle with you that will hopefully change some mindsets you may have about our walk with God. These scriptures above are the foundation on which I will build.

There are times in everyone’s walk with God that we are more aware of what He is doing in our lives and even hear God more clearly and distinctly. These periods of time can last a quite a while. Sometimes they are brief. We can feel God drawing us into the Bible and prayer and these times are wonderful and “seem” very productive. Your purpose for why you are created is never more clear. Our worship is full of emotion and passion for Him and you can almost hear the angels singing with you! You have the faith to move mountains and there is no request too small for our God!

Then all of a sudden “WAM!” you are in the wilderness

During these periods of time, it can be hard to hear His voice. We are not always so sure what way we are supposed to go. Our Bible does not yield the once abundant revelation of who He is. You may be frustrated cause you think you are spinning your wheels and getting nowhere! Your worship seems to become a sernade for the ceiling tiles and the faith you had dwindles and you don’t even know if He gives a crap about you! Yes, this is a wilderness!

The twisted thing that our minds cannot get wrapped around is the fact that the wilderness times in our lives are ordained by God! There are many who think that we go through these times in our lives because we have sinned. This can be true (not usually) but this is not what I am talking about. Wilderness times are potentially a time of great growth or a time of great decline in our walk with God. It’s easier not to sin when it feels like our heavenly Father is standing over our shoulder but when He seems so far away, this is the time our true character is revealed! Look at the example of the Israelites, their selfishness, their rebellious spirit, and what God they truly served was revealed! This is what happens when we go through these wilderness times. The things that we hide deep in our hearts, those things we don’t want people to know about are revealed and brought to the surface to be seen so they can be dealt with.

Here is the crux of the matter. We have a choice on how we react to these times of testing, drought, despair. Most Christians do  not use these times to draw closer to Him. Actually the reaction is quite the opposite in most cases. Because we don’t understand that He is trying to build our character, we rebel against what He is doing. We stop praying, we stop reading the Word, and we definately don’t worship Him! Think about that! How selfish does that sound? I understand when all hell is breaking loose the last thing we want to do sometimes is to pray or worship, but guess what? That is exactly what He wants! He wants us to be like Jesus! He wants us to die! He wants our attitudes and rebellion to die! He wants our selfishness to die! He wants us to reflect His Christ-like character!

The sad part is we will go through the same ole junk over and over and over again until we are willing to bow our knee and submit to His correction and surrender those areas in our lives that need to be brought under His Lordship.

This is HUGE! What I did many times was give up. I stopped praying. I stopped reading. And you know what? God wanted just the opposite!

He wanted me to read in the dry times so that no matter what I faced, I would have His Word in my heart and it would direct my decisions . He wanted me to pray cause even when I did not pray, He was speaking to me. It shows faithfulness and devotion. He wants us to cry out and bear our heart to Him. Check out Psalms sometime. David was extremely passionate about God but there are Psalms when he is crying out to God and it seems like He doesn’t hear. You are not the first or last to experience this.

I say this with the greatest conviction of ANYTHING you ever hear me say: DO NOT STOP!! DO NOT STOP! DO NOT STOP!! I say this from the experience of a man who did this over, and over, over again! I was angry with God cause He wasn’t doing what I wanted Him to! I acted like a spoiled brat! I never realized that He wanted HIS will for my life! Not mine! I plead with you! DO NOT STOP! You too will wander in the desert of your stubborness and pride until you die to your flesh and your pride and your stiff neck! You will never enter into what God has for you until you bow your knee to His Lordship in your life!

This is a little heavier than most of what we talk about in Source Group but necessary. Hope this speaks to someone out here in the great WWW. God is good.

Kevin