I have a question for you to consider, one which might help you understand why you’re going through a time of trials or difficulty. The question is this: “Are you self-confident, or are you dependent on the Lord?” Allow me to begin with an illustration, in order to stir your imagination and get you to thinking.
One day a mother was out shopping with her son. When she took him shopping, she couldn’t keep him by her side. As soon as she would turn her back, the boy would wander off somewhere, though keeping his mother in sight. She would then have to go and find him. Her son had a pride problem. He was disobedient and thought he had his mother wrapped around his little finger. He was also overconfident in his own ability to venture out, and to know where his mother was at all times.
Well, again the boy departed from his mother and assumed that she would be there. His mother then decided she would get sneaky, and when he wasn’t looking she hid from him behind a clothes rack. When the child realized his mother was gone, he frantically began searching for her. She then decided that he had had enough, and she came out from her hiding place. When the boy saw her, he dashed to her and clung to her; and from that time forward, he stayed right by his mother’s side, and never let her out of his sight again.
This is somewhat similar to what the Lord will do if we become overconfident and think we can do it all on our own. He might stop speaking to us and stop revealing things to us, as He hides His face. Isaiah 59:2 says, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” Keep in mind, however, that it is actually “we” who have turned away from the Lord first.
The Lord can’t reach us through our pride and conceit, so He may choose to humble us through disappointment or a wounded heart. In humbling us, God is forcing us into the wilderness of our own self to explore our incompetence and weaknesses. He wants us to realize that we truly need Him in our life.
Mark 1:12-13 says, “Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.” Jesus wasn’t driven into the wilderness to be taught a lesson; but to show forth His spiritual fortitude in overcoming the attacks of the devil. However, believers are often driven into the wilderness for a lesson.
What’s so important about the wilderness? Two Scripture references tell us what exactly God uses the wilderness for. Matthew 4:1 says, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Luke 3:2 says, “The word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.” The Lord uses the wilderness 1.) to test and try us, and 2.) to reveal things to us. The wilderness is a purging ground; a place of spiritual cleansing and revelation.
Sometimes we can become prideful and overconfident in our own abilities; and similar to the illustration of the mother and her son, God will have to depart from us, or hide from us, in order to gain our attention and cause us to cling to Him. He will do so by testing us in the wilderness of our inner-being.
When we’re lost in the wilderness and seeking a way home, if we’ll call out to Him, then He will answer us. In Zechariah 13:9, the Lord said, “I will . . . refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘This is My people;’ and each one will say, ‘The Lord is my God’.” If you’re going through a time of trials or difficulties, then call on the name of the Lord. The Bible says, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 13:9).
Now, the verse that says, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” is actually a reference to being saved from our sins. Romans 6:23 tells us, “The wages of sin is death.” If we die before knowing Jesus as our Savior, we will experience spiritual death, which is spending forever in the flames of hell; but if we will confess Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, we will gain spiritual life. Romans 6:23 goes on to say, “But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”