Writings of a Beholder 🌿 5.12.23
A word on wilderness seasons
A Word on Wilderness Seasons
I read an article this week on what supposedly characterizes a ‘wilderness season’. In this particular article, the author spoke of spiritual lack, giving into one’s temptations and indulging the flesh, spiritual dryness, and disconnection from God. He wrote of purposelessness, bordering on hopelessness.
What misery, I thought. And how completely the writer of this article has missed the mark.
While wilderness seasons are often not looked upon as desirable seasons in the faith pilgrimage, and while they can feel hopeless at times, I do disagree with the writer that they don’t serve a good purpose. That they aren’t full of Hope. That they separate you from the presence of God in some way, as if that were possible, leaving the one wandering to wander on their own.
I’ve been reading up on wilderness seasons because I find myself in one. I find myself wandering around in the dark, uncertain of where God is leading me. But what has been true of my wilderness season doesn’t quite correlate with what the writer of that unnamed article wrote.
And maybe you’re feeling disconnected. Maybe you’re feeling spiritually dry, lonely, thirsty, and afraid — uncertain of where God is leading. If that’s you, it’s me, too, and I want to share with you what I know to be true about wandering seasons.
Here’s what I know to be true about my own wilderness season:
Grief, sorrow, and loneliness have been the undercurrent
A feeling of wandering around in the dark and not knowing my destination has been prominent
There’s a strong sense of God’s presence meeting me in this place even when I can’t see Him
God’s voice is becoming clearer
There’s a refining and stripping of old, dead things at work within me
There’s also a healing and restoring of broken things being made new
I’m learning to connect with God in new and different ways
Evident growth
As I turn to the Word of God, the ultimate compass for wilderness seasons, I don’t find purposelessness and total disconnection to be true there, either.
In fact, what has been true of my wilderness season lines up with some of the passages I’ve read, including Deuteronomy 8:2-3,
“Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” (NIV)
In these few verses, we see that God leads in wilderness seasons. He’s present and speaking, choosing to go all the way with the wandering ones. There’s a refining — a humbling — that happens as hunger at the center of a soul sets in and we are invited to learn what it means to rely on the strength and love of God alone as we learn to let go of the baggage we carry so that He can form us and fill us.
Here is where He starves the false self so that the true self can step forward.
As I ponder and pray about these wilderness seasons, my mind wanders to Hagar and her own wandering away from home and into the wilderness in Genesis 16:1-15. Maybe you know the story, maybe her story is your story. I know in a lot of ways, it’s mine, too.
She was a slave to Abram and Sarai, two people who were promised a child but had to wait for that promise to come. Growing impatient, fearful, and probably a bit insecure, Sarai told her slave, Hagar, to sleep with Abram so that they might have this promised child. Hagar, obeying her mistress, ends up pregnant and tossed aside.
And where does she run? The wilderness.
“The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness, along the road to Shur. The angel said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?” (Genesis 16:7-8, NLT)
Hagar ran into the wilderness to hide and ran right into El Roi, the One Who Sees. The One Who sees the pain and the fear and the ache and the loneliness and the shame and chooses to draw near and ask, “Where have you come from, and where are you going?”
Maybe in our running into the wilderness — wondering and wrestling and wandering and stumbling — we’re actually running into the arms of Love.
Maybe, just maybe, wilderness seasons aren’t meant to disconnect or separate, but to draw us closer to the Light. Maybe they come for us to strip us of what keeps us from entering into the fullness of God, growing in intimacy and communion.
I refuse to believe that wilderness seasons aren’t beautiful places of growth and healing, places where God comes to us in unexpected and glory-filled ways. While the wilderness can be a painful and lonely place, I’ve experienced too much of God’s goodness here to tell you they’re hopeless.
They serve a purpose, and that purpose is always and forever to make you look more like the One lighting the way for you.
Pastor and writer, Steve Wiens, says this about wilderness seasons,
“The wilderness is a womb in which mercy can grow if you let it.”
The wilderness — my own wandering, and wrestling — a womb where good things do grow in the dark covering of the presence of God. A place where the old, heavy, and hurtful things go to die so that something new can be reborn.
Both the Israelites and Hagar were given a promise there in the wilderness. For the Israelites, it was the promise of the Promised Land — a spacious place flowing with milk and honey. For Hagar, it was the promise of a prominent son.
The promise for us is always more of God; more of His goodness even in the midst of what hurts and aches.
God is moving here, friend. He’s moving in what feels immobile. He’s growing things inside of you even here, in the waiting and wandering.
Listen for His promises, hold fast to His arm as He leads you through, and never — not for one second — believe that God isn’t right here with you.
Peace be with you,
Celia
A Breath Prayer for Your Weekend
breathe in:
You are the God.
breathe out:
Who Sees Me.
*if you’d like to learn more about the practice of breath prayer, check out this blog post I wrote titled, How to Use Breath Prayer.
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Resources & Good Things to Pick Up
I quoted Steve Wiens in today’s letter, and you can read his article here on wilderness seasons. I found it to be really encouraging: How to Know When You’re in the Wilderness with God
I posted a survey on my Instagram stories earlier this week asking what kind of products you want to see featured in my Etsy shop, and the majority of you said digital resources on spiritual practices. So I put together two digital guides — one for Lectio Divina and one for breath prayer — that are up on the shop available for purchase (if you are a paying Sacred Spaces member, you may have already read this content just FYI, but you are free to purchase it if you want a digital guide you can refer easily back to):
Your Complete Digital Guide to Practicing Lectio Divina
Your Complete Digital Guide to Practicing Breath Prayer
My friend and licensed spiritual director, Kari Bartkus, offers an 8-week journaling program for those who want to process their grief and trauma with God within the safety of blank journal pages. I’ve completed the program myself and can say confidently that it was incredibly impactful and healing: Journal Gently
Grab some breath prayer cards, a journal, and other contemplative resources from my Etsy shop: The Beholding Co.
Grab a copy of my Bible study, You Are Beloved: a 21-day study on how to root your identity in the love of God, over on Amazon. And if you’d like a free 3-day sample of the study, hit reply to this email and I’ll send it right over!
An Invitation to Pause & Reflect
A regular practice of reflection helps us recognize what’s going on beneath the surface of our souls so we can name it in the Lord’s presence. Because as we learn to name what we feel, what we need, and what we long for, we’re also learning to discern the Spirit’s sweet, gentle voice within our hearts and lives.
Take a few moments today or this weekend to journal or contemplate with the Holy Spirit the following question(s) or prompt(s):
What do you know to be true about your own wilderness season? Where is God meeting you here?
If you’re not in a wilderness season, what’s true about your current season and where is God meeting you?
What a lovely reminder of God’s relentless presence.