Finding A Wilderness of Purpose with John the Baptist
It’s a regular Tuesday morning. The coffee is hot, your bible sits open on your lap, and the house is quiet. Imagine for a moment that a good friend calls you up out of the blue, disturbing your peaceful setting to give you some shocking news. Your friend describes her plan to leave her comfortable life—her house in the suburbs with the nice wood fence and quiet, kind neighbors—to live somewhere without running water, rampant with preventable diseases, and dangerous, to boot.
Not only does this friend spring her new life plan on you at 6:30 a.m., but she also go so far as to claim God told her to do it.
Just before you blurt out, Have you lost your mind? The desert is both unforgivingly hot during the day and freezing at night, and it’s full of strange bugs and deadly animals. God did not tell you to do this. You ask instead, “Why?”
Roads Paved With Crazy Ideas
John the Baptist, or John the Baptizer, lived a life eerily similar to the surprise life plan above. Before he could even walk his destiny was to “prepare the way for the Lord [and] make His paths straight” (Mark 1:3). For those unfamiliar with the prophetic word spoken over a young John they probably asked the why question a handful or a hundred times as he prepared to begin his ministry in the wilderness.
When you feel God’s call to do something or go somewhere that sounds a little crazy at best, impossible at worst, our logic-craving minds kick into gear with all the reasons this venture will fail. Logic says, give up. Faith says, try it anyway.
Roads paved with God’s purpose can be lonely ones to walk when the people in our lives don’t understand or choose not to understand. Logic is a good thing, as is a healthy level of fear. It’s the biological mechanism keeping us from engaging in overly dangerous activities—like jumping off that bridge our parents asked us about so many times—that could result in injury or even death.
Fear and logic are good biological functions given by God to keep us physically safe and help us live a full life, but what happens when logic is given too much control in our decision-making? Doubt and skepticism reach their clawed fingers into our hearts, clouding our judgement and making faith seem suspicious.
Doubters Welcome Here
Not everyone will agree with this idea, but I believe doubts can occasionally lead to deeper faith. Having doubts does not make me a bad or untrusting Christian, it makes me human. Doubting could be the pause between making a wise choice or a terrible, life-altering decision. Lingering in our doubts can lead to a lack of action, but it’s not wrong to simply feel doubts about what you feel God telling you to do.
Seeking wise, biblical counsel from a trusted person when doubts enter your mind is a healthy response. I’d say it’s a great first step to dealing with doubt, but remember, God spoke to you, not whoever you’re trusting to guide you through the doubt. Even people we trust implicitly to help us work through doubt can be wrong in their interpretation of what we believe God is whispering to us. Listen expectantly for His still, small voice and trust that God will let you know if you heard Him wrong.
If hearing God’s voice is a struggle for you, let yourself enter moments, or better yet, stretches of quiet solitude to find His voice again. This means time alone with God, without distractions pulling your attention in different directions. The best way to hear from God is to check your motivations before you enter your solitude. Am I only telling myself I want to hear from God, to truly hear what He has to say, or am I seeking a genuine encounter with Him? Seek Him out with an earnest desire to hear what He says and God will speak to you.
John the Baptist had moments of doubt and loneliness in the wild places God sent Him to prepare the way. He was just as human as we are; prone to question before we trust. Let’s face it, if God called me to live in the desert wilderness eating bugs and wearing scratchy clothes, I might have some doubts too.
A Wilderness of Purpose
We want to follow God’s leading in our lives, but only if it leads to comfortable and familiar places. We rarely ask to be led out into the unknown, rough wilderness of life, but that might be exactly where our true gifts lie.
Setting off into the wilderness with only faith to lead us is a surrendering to the provision of God.
It’s learning to rely on God in ways we never had to before, and we don’t always step out into the heat of the desert willingly or intentionally. Sometimes the first step into the sand is a stumble.
Finding our wilderness of purpose means letting go of any expectations about what it will look like and embracing uncertainty in the discovery instead. Almost every follower of Jesus written about in the bible began their journey expecting it to look much different than it did in reality.
The tv show The Chosen depicts the lives of the twelve disciples, providing a picture of their lives before and after Jesus entered the picture. Peter—formerly known as Simon—was a fascinating character to observe. He was married prior to casting away his fishnets for human ones, which made his choice to follow Jesus that much more complicated.
Peter’s wife, Eden, sees him more excited and passionate about following this strange man who could be the Messiah they’ve waited so long for that she agrees to let Peter leave. Neither of them knew when he would return, or even if he would be able to come back home. They had no idea what this would look like or where it would eventually lead.
When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well, telling her “everything [she] ever did” it’s the beginning of His true ministry on earth, and Peter is only too excited to begin. “Let’s do this,” he says with a smile spreading across his face, no doubt wondering with all the others what ‘this’ will look like. They only had faith that this man named Jesus wouldn’t lead them astray, that what they stepped out into was the next right thing.
I’ll be honest with you. What holds me back from springing out of my seat to go wander in the wilderness is the fear that maybe I got it wrong. Maybe I misheard or misinterpreted what God told me. What if I leave all of this comfortable and familiar space and end up failing in unknown territory? Even worse, what if I look like a complete lunatic doing this?
Don’t let fear and doubt chain you in place, stuck in the quicksand of a mediocre faith. Replace your doubts and fears of what could happen with curiosity of how God could use you instead.
What is your wilderness of purpose? What is God whispering to you that might seem crazy to others? How will you respond?
Leave a comment below with your answer!
