“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the
desert and speak tenderly to her” (Hosea 2:14).
If you have an important message to convey to someone, what is the
best means of getting the message through? Have you ever tried to talk
with someone who was so busy you could not get them to hear you?
Distractions prevent us from giving our undivided attention to the
messenger. So too, God has His way of taking us aside to get our
undivided attention. For Paul, it was Arabia for three years, for
Moses, it was forty years in the desert, for Joseph, it was thirteen
years in Egypt, for David, it was many years of fleeing from King
Saul.
God knows the stubborn human heart. He knows that if He is to
accomplish His deepest work, He must take us into the desert in order
to give us the privilege to be used in His kingdom. It is the desert
where we are changed. He removes those things that hinder. He forces
us to draw deep upon His grace. The desert is only a season in our
life. When He has accomplished what He wants in our lives in the
desert, He will bring us out. He has given you and I a mission to
fulfill that can only be fulfilled after we have spent adequate time
in preparation in the desert. Fear not the desert. For it is there you
will hear the voice of God like never before. It is here you become
His bridegroom. It is here you will have the idols of your life
removed. It is here you begin to experience the reality of a living
God like never before. Someone once said, “God uses enlarged trials to
produce enlarged saints so He can put them in enlarged places!”
“He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he
delighted in me” (2 Samuel 22:20).