Deserts are strangely beautiful. They are dry, barren, and dusty. In the midst of this, they are also a vastness of solitude that continues for miles and miles. While being stuck in a physical desert could never be viewed as a blessing, being stuck in a spiritual desert can be the biggest blessing that God ever gives to you.
Spiritual deserts are messy and confusing. You feel like you are empty, you feel as if you can't form a thought. You feel as if God has somewhat forgotten you, and that maybe it was all just a part of your imagination. Maybe God really can't help you now, maybe you have wondered for too long in the desert and there's no chance for reconciliation.
I found myself in the middle of a desert for so long that I felt as if God could no longer hear my prayers. I thought that I had done something to make Him turn away from me. I searched and searched for an answer as to why my spiritual life was bone dry. I hadn't experienced a real move of God in so long, I hadn't felt God's presence or heard His voice in such a long time that I thought I would never have it ever again. I wondered around my desert, constantly asking "God, why aren't You responding? Why can't You just give me the answers I need? Why am I having to endure this season of drought?". During a drought, you tend to seek God more than you would during a season of rain. I believe that's what the drought is for.
God wants you to realize that seasons of rain are amazing, but seasons of drought are the ultimate faith testers. During rainy seasons, we get comfortable with God. When we get comfortable with God, we begin to limit Him. Let me tell you, trying to limit a limitless God is always going to be impossible because the second you think you have God figured out, He's going to show off and throw you a curve ball. We can't possibly come to fully understand the vastness, the greatness, and the wonderfulness of God. We can experience it, we can see it for ourselves in our own lives, but we will never fully be able to comprehend Him.
I found myself in a spiritual desert, and I came out of that desert more soaked in the greatness of God, the love of God, and the mercy of God than I would if I had jumped into the middle of the ocean.
If you are in a spiritual desert, wondering around, asking God where He is and why He has allowed you to enter into this desert, understand that He placed you in the desert to be alone with you. To help you to understand that you cannot limit Him, you cannot contain Him, you cannot control Him.
He is sovereign.
He is faithful.
He is just.
He is merciful.
He is God.
And He helped me find myself in the middle of the desert.
