The Wilderness Will Not Be the End of You

The Wilderness Will Not Be the End of You
As the saints are empowered to persevere through adversity, the genuineness of their profession is authenticated, and they are shown truly to belong to God.
Greg Beale

What comes to mind when you hear the word “wilderness”? Natural beauty? Solitude? Quiet? Untamed vastness? Rough terrain? What about when you think about a spiritual wilderness? I think of isolation, loneliness, feeling distant from the Lord, feeling dry and weary, unclear of what to do, lacking fervency for spiritual things, and looking all around seeing the wilderness stretching out in all directions. No end in sight. It’s a time of questioning. It’s a feeling of weakness. Perhaps even a time of doubt and deep discouragement. Thankfully, on the wilderness road, I am not alone; I am sealed by God and He has me on this path to establish and strengthen my faith. This is the truth Paul used to encourage the Corinthians.

Paul reminds them of God’s faithful work in them. “Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22 NASB). Notice the subject of all the verbs. God establishes us in Christ. God anointed. God sealed. God gave us His Spirit. Salvation and the sanctification of the believer is God’s work. This doesn’t mean that we do nothing, because the authenticity of the believer is shown in his obedience to the Savior; but it does mean that ultimately salvation and the fruit of that salvation is God’s work, and He finishes what He starts (Phil. 1:6). And when we walk through a particularly dry and long wilderness time in our spiritual life, when the loneliness and hardships reveal our sinfulness, when it seems God is silent and our heart is cold, we need to know that He has sealed us by His Spirit and He is, even in this wilderness, establishing us. The long darkness will not be the end. 

The word Paul uses for “establishes” is rich with meaning. 
  • It means to make firm, secure or solidly fixed in place. God is making us as His children securely firm in the faith. 
  • It means to be reliable and dependable, giving the same result in successive trials. God is making our faith dependable and shaping us to be ones that learn to repeatedly stand firm upon Him and His Word. 
  • Establishes has the idea of making confident. God is taking our faith and building confidence into our faith. Not a confidence in ourselves, but rather a confidence in Him, His promises, and His strength. 
  • To establish must include strengthening and proving the truth of. God is making us stronger and revealing the validity of what we are and whose we are. 
The tense of the verb “establishes” means that it is a continuous work. God is continuously at work in us to establish us, make us firm, strengthen us, and preserve us. So even when we feel like all around us and in us is dry and there seems to be a scarcity of spiritual life, if we are in Christ, God has purposes for this time and His purposes include establishing us in Him. 

The bedrock of truth that Paul also shares with the Corinthians that can help us endure a long season of hardship is the truth that God has sealed us and given us His Spirit. In the ancient world when something had a seal placed on it, it showed ownership and protection. God has set His seal upon us. And this seal is not merely a mark but rather His very Person, the Holy Spirit. His Spirit residing in us is the guarantee that we shall live eternally with Him. No harm can befall us here that will separate us from our Father because we are united to Him through His Spirit. While we are here, we are not guaranteed protection from physical harm, discouragement, or wilderness times but rather protection through them. “The sealing enables God’s people to respond in faith to the trials through which they pass so that these trials become the very instruments by which they are strengthened in their faith” (Beale, Greg). This dry and weary road we may be on, the ups and down of life, the intense battle with our flesh, all of these are designed by our Savior, not to discourage us or drive us from Him, but to draw us nearer in dependence on His Spirit, His work, His faithfulness. So when we think the long wilderness might be the end of our faith, we can remind ourselves that we have been sealed by God Almighty and no one can snatch us from His hand.  

The wilderness will not be the end of you, or me, or any of God’s children. He has led us here, and He is with us all the way. He has secured us as His own and has given us His Spirit. And this hard season is part of the path He has taken us on in order that He might strengthen our faith. Fanny Crosby knew hardship and darkness, and she leaves us these words from the middle verse of All the Way My Savior Leads Me reminding us that His grace will meet us in every trial. He will feed us with the living Bread of Himself. The nourishing we need, we will receive. This is the joy we have in the wilderness. 

“All the way my Savior leads me, 
Cheers each winding path I tread; 
Gives me grace for ev’ry trial, 
Feeds me with the living Bread. 
Tho’ my weary steps may falter,
And my soul athirst may be, 
Gushing from the Rock before me,
Lo! A spring of joy I see.”

Prayer: Heavenly Father, You see this road that I am on. You have led me here and You are walking this road beside me. But this season has been hard, and I feel my own sinfulness even more, my own discouragement growing. But I have been sealed by You. I am Yours. You will not let me falter or fall away from You. You have me firmly in Your grasp and You have designed even this wilderness time to make my faith more firm, more steadfast with an increased confidence in You. Please give me Your grace today to continue walking with You even though I am weary. Feed me with the living Bread of Yourself and satisfy my thirsty soul in You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.


Photo credit to joshuaearle

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Anonymous said…
Amen and amen!
12:09 PM
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