At the beginning of 2023, I started reading the Bible from the very beginning, slowly, at my own pace, without a plan and without rush.

For some reason, although many gravitate toward the New Testament when they read the Bible, I always find myself fascinated by the Old Testament.

Maybe it’s the awe of watching God speak the universe into existence.
Maybe it’s witnessing the first marriage between two sinless people.
Maybe it’s the weight of God’s covenants with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Or maybe it’s the front-row seat, popcorn in hand, to the wild, messy family drama that I can clearly visualize between each line. All the miracles. The rebellion. The redemption.

Whatever it is, I love reading the Old Testament!

It’s fascinating.
So mysterious.
The out-of-the-world miraculous unveiled through the messiest of people and their stories never fail to well up a struggling believer’s heart with hope!

That’s why there is much to glean from every chapter and every verse. A peak into God’s heart weaved into the complexity that the Holy Spirit packed into the Bible is one of the greatest privileges.

Whenever I need my hope stirred up, or if I am struggling with a giant mountain in front of me that just doesn’t seem to give, one of my favorite stories to read is how the Israelites were led by God into the unexpected wilderness and eventually to the Promised Land!

Don’t we all want to leave whatever wilderness season we are going through quickly to enter the land flowing with milk and honey? That definitely encourages one, right!

From backbreaking slavery in Egypt to the long, refining journey of forty years in the wilderness before finally stepping into the Promised Land. I love studying the topics of wilderness and the Promised Land. Probably because how most of my adult life has felt (and still feels) like wilderness!

If you are a Christian, you are most likely to go through multiple wilderness seasons before God allows the Promised Land(s) to come into your sight. And its for our best!

However, walking through wilderness seasons can be quite discouraging. Not fun. Hopeless. Never ending.

But the good news and the best part about a wilderness season is that our Promised Land is waiting at the end of it. That, we can be certain of.

The wilderness is preparation.

Without the wilderness season, we might be quite unprepared for what comes our way in the Promised Land. Believe it or not, Promised Land will not be full of roses and cupcakes! Neither is the path to enter the Promised Land. It clearly wasn’t, for the Israelites!

Just as they had to be transformed from slaves into warriors during their wilderness to occupy the Promised Land, we need a different kind of strength, depth in character, and a cultivated intimacy with the Lord to enter, conquer, and dwell in the Promised Land that God has prepared for us.

But we must be very careful to not make the Promised Land an idol in our hearts and let it become something that we seek or desire more than the Lord. In addition, we must be incredibly careful to not give into the temptation of allowing something else take the rightful place of the Lord in our hearts. Especially after the Lord allows us to enter the Promised Land!

Personally, I have learned to cherish wilderness seasons because the way we allow the Lord to mold, stretch, and renew us in this season determines how we fare in the journey toward and in the Promised Land.

If we are careless during the significant preparatory time during the wilderness, we will miss the valuable lessons and the character development that the Lord has prepared for us to flourish in the Promised Land.

We may end up going through much trouble and pain that could’ve been prevented if only we paid attention to God’s plan for us during our wilderness seasons!

I think one of the most important aspects of the wilderness is that God provides us with a blueprint of how our heart, mind, and soul should align with His character for the Promised Land. In other words, God in His kindness, is not only preparing the Promised Land for each of us but He is also preparing us and showing us how to be in the Promised land.

This means that if we are trying to figure out how to live or be in the Promised Land when we are about to arrive or once we enter, we are probably almost too late.

I am not eluding to becoming perfect before we enter the Promised Land. Whatever that means.

I am just saying that life will be much easier, at least in terms of fundamentals, in the Promised Land if we paid attention to what God is telling us and doing in us during the wilderness season.

And throughout this series, we will talk about several examples of this from the wilderness season of the Israelites from this perspective.

I could honestly talk about the gift of wilderness for hours, but I think this is a good place to pause and shift gears.

In the next post, we’ll dive into some of the defining characteristics of wilderness seasons through the experiences of the Israelites.