“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).