“Don’t fear the desert; it is there where you will hear God’s voice as never before.”- Os Hillman
“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyard, and will make the Valley of Achor (trouble) a door of hope.”- Hosea 2:4-5 (NIV)
In Chapter 3 (“Do You Know Why God Made You”) of The Joseph Calling, Os Hillman notes the word desert in Hebrew means “to speak.” Thus, it’s in the desert where you’ll:
- have the idols of your life revealed and removed
- begin to experience the reality of a living God as never before
Yet, Os counsels, you must remember that your desert, character-developing session defines exactly that- a season or stage in your life. When God’s accomplished His necessary work in you, He’ll bring you out of that season. To fulfill the mission the Lord’s given you requires an adequate amount of desert preparation time. As someone once said, “God uses enlarged trials to produce enlarged saints to He can put them in enlarged places.”
In conclusion, Mr. Hillman stresses that you not only need to discover your purpose, but also your anointing. Writing in Anointing: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, R. T. Kendall explains the gift of anointing this way:
“The best way I have been able to describe [an anointing] is that it is when our gift functions easily. It comes with ease. It seems natural. No working it up is needed. It is either there or it isn’t. If one has to work it up, one has probably gone outside one’s anointing . . . the result is often fatigue — that is, weariness or spiritual lethargy . . . described as ‘dying inside.’ ”
Today’s question: What causes you to fear the desert? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Your time of convergence”
