InspiredSample

You can’t get too far along in Scripture without seeing that nearly every story   of deliverance is accompanied by some time in the wilderness. The wilderness,   as both a geographic region and literary motif, appears in so many of the   Bible’s stories and poems, it functions a bit like a recurring musical theme.   Some biblical characters, like Hagar and Jacob, flee to the wilderness to   escape dysfunctional relationships; others, like the people of Israel, are   banished there as part of God’s discipline for sin. The prophet Elijah hid in the wilderness to escape political persecution, and Jesus retreated there to prepare for his ministry. A place of danger and desolation, creeping with wild animals and threatening with rugged, parched terrain, the   wilderness, by design, disorients. As any wilderness trekker past or present   will tell you, the wilderness has a way of forcing the point, of bringing to the surface whatever fears, questions, and struggles hide within. Nothing strips you down to your essential humanity and inherent dependency quite like submitting to the elements, surrendering to the wild. Indeed, some of Scripture’s most momentous events occur in the wilderness.   Jacob wrestles with the mysterious stranger. Moses encounters the burning   bush. The Israelites receive the Law that would shape them as a people for   millennia to come. John baptizes repentant sinners and prepares the world for Christ, channeling the prophet Isaiah by declaring, “A voice is calling in   the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight paths for Him”   (Matthew 3:3). It is in the wilderness that the exiled David is said to have composed some   of his most beautiful psalms. . . . There’s no place like the wilderness to hear the voice of God. Every   prophet must journey through it, every seeker get lost there for a while, for   the wilderness yields sustenance of a different sort—water from rock, manna   from desert, bread from ravens—and to those who dare sojourn its farthest reaches, there is shade in the shadow of God’s wings.