DAY 35 - Into the Wilderness

Mark 1:9-13 (NASB) ⁹In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰Immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him; ¹¹and a voice came out of the heavens: “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased." ¹²Immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness. ¹³And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to Him.

I invite you to follow Jesus into a wilderness of place and of soul. This is not a place that Jesus particularly chose for Himself to be. Jesus was tempted. He was struggling with some basic issues about who He was and what He was called to do. Jesus is very much alone in the wilderness but not abandoned. Angels of support are there, but they are in the background.

Have you been in the wilderness of temptation? Whatever gets us there, in the wilderness we face some very important decisions about the kind of person we really are and what we are doing with the gift of life.

In the wilderness, we hear the howling of the wild beasts, the threats, ”If you don’t take that job, you are nothing. If you say something about the dissatisfaction in your marriage, you are going to lose it all. If you take God seriously, you will have to give up your favorite pleasure and become a religious fanatic.” You have heard the threats.

And, in the wilderness there are angels, special people, a thought, an awareness buried deep inside, or a deep sense of security, but there are no miracles, no sudden bursting of clarity and light. And in the wilderness is the Tempter saying, “God does not care. Your struggle is too small for God to worry with. God has deserted you.”

If we are driven into the wilderness, let us be there in the spirit of Jesus Christ, and there make some important decisions about who we are and where we are going, and to accept the struggle as God given. This is God’s gift to us, not one we would have chosen, but one we need. Mental, emotional, and spiritual health comes to us when we are simply willing to accept the struggle. How can the Tempter get through to us when we accept the struggle as a gift of God rather than as a sign we are abandoned by God? And then we defeat the Tempter.

God is the composer of our life, the creator, but He has given us the responsibility of being the conductor, to conduct ourselves, our thoughts, our feelings, and our behavior. And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, came from the wilderness. And we come forth. We come forth with a new Spirit of conviction.

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope February 16, 1997

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles