Consider this: As a servant of Christ, you will one day enter a season of helplessness where you no longer call the shots and know what to do. It will seem as if you don't have what it takes to survive—finding yourself in a place and a season where only Christ will be your strength.
The One whose name is Living Water is within you. This wonderful Jesus brings you a life-giving stream, fulfilling every need no matter how difficult the many surprises of life can be. He is within you as a well of water "springing up and flooding you with endless life" (John 4:14)!
This "gushing fountain" begins to flow inside until praise rises up out of you again. Before you know it, the springs are watering everything around you—and every dry place within you. You will see situations differently, you will feel differently about the people around you, and you will see things you didn't even notice before. When Jesus shows up in the wilderness, it disappears. It becomes a garden.
The Lord will always show you where to go and what to do, filling you with refreshment when you are dry and in a difficult place.
"...He will continually restore strength to you, so you will flourish like a well-watered garden and like an ever-flowing, trustworthy spring of blessing." (Isaiah 58:11 TPT)
Your Desert Will Blossom Like a Rose
We learn in a difficult season that even though we may be in a wilderness, our hearts don't have to be a barren wasteland. Our wilderness starts growing flowers when Jesus flows from within us. His presence satisfies the deep thirst that dries up the soul and places us in a weary land or a weary season. Whoever heard of roses blooming in a desert? But read what Isaiah says:
"...The desert will blossom like a rose and rejoice! Every dry and barren place will burst forth with abundant blossoms, dancing and spinning with delight..." (Isaiah 35:1-2 TPT)
Your wilderness (your life with its surprises and setbacks) will blossom with a rose; and that rose is Christ! Jesus, the Rose, will be found in your desert days, bringing a new fragrance and a new song. What you thought was an impossible climate for overcoming will become the canvas for a rose.
Miracles are waiting to be found in your wilderness. Even in a wilderness, God can work in power. He doesn't need perfection to pull off a miracle. He's done it before with nothing but chaos all around. It was called creation! There is no shortage of power with God. He can make lame ones leap and broken ones sing. Most of us have an attitude that translates the word "wilderness" into "something terrible." But in fact, the Bible teaches that the wilderness is the place where miracles are born, the place where we hear God speak, and the place where He truly reveals Himself to us. We have found our greatest difficulties in life to be the incubator of miracles!
What about you? Are you finding yourself in a wilderness? A difficult place where pressures surround you? Have you found the only way out is to lean on your Beloved?
God will even lead you there, into your very own personal wilderness. That's right. Just like it was for the Hebrews, between you and your promised land lies a wilderness of discovery and, at times, disappointment. Yet in the wilderness we find that the surprises of life yield the most beautiful fruit. The supernatural power of God is more often displayed in a wilderness than in a church service. God will use your wilderness to release the virtues of Christ growing within!
Stairway Ministries
Email: brian@passiontranslation.com
Website: https://www.thepassiontranslation.com/blog/
Brian Simmons is known as a passionate lover of God. With his wife Candice and their three children, he spent nearly eight years in the tropical rain forest of the Darien Province of Panama as a church planter, translator, and consultant. After their ministry in the jungle, Brian was instrumental in planting a thriving church in New England (U.S.), and now travels full-time as a speaker and Bible teacher. He is also the lead translator for The Passion Translation Project which will result in a new, dynamic version of the Bible for this generation. He has been happily married to Candice for over forty-three years and is known to boast regularly of his children and grandchildren.
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