My friend Jim loves to wear this shirt that says, "I've been to the wilderness" - that's on the front. On the back it says, "I can handle anything." Sounds a little cocky maybe, but he did earn the right to wear the shirt. He went on a two-week wilderness program where they pushed him, and all those on the trip, to go way beyond their limitations. Running for miles, climbing for hours with a heavy backpack, living off the land, blazing trails, enduring the heat, going solo for two days with almost nothing to live on. Hard? Yes. Fun? Not particularly. Worth it? Ask Jim. Or, better yet, read his shirt. "I've been to the wilderness - I can handle anything!"
Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You about "A Wilderness Warrior."
Our Word for today from the Word of God comes from Luke 4:1. "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for 40 days He was tempted by the devil." As Satan tried to exploit Jesus' vulnerability and detour Jesus from God's plans, Jesus withstood him every step of the way by answering with the Word of God through these three macro temptations.
Verses 13-15 - "When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left Him until an opportune time. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and the news about Him spread through the whole countryside." Jesus had been to the wilderness. And from those dark days, He emerged ready to handle anything. He came out of His wilderness experience in the power of the Holy Spirit. And that power exploded across the country as Jesus healed the incurable, stopped a storm with a word, evicted demons, and magnetized thousands with His message. But first, He had to go to the wilderness.
So do you. My friend would tell you that surviving the wilderness isn't easy - he didn't do it because he wanted aching muscles and total fatigue. He did it because he wanted the strength that he could gain by making it through the wilderness.
Now Jesus didn't choose the wilderness - anymore than you or I do. The Bible says He was led by the Spirit. God decides when it's time for a wilderness experience in your life. And as Jesus experienced, it's a time when there aren't many resources, when the only voice you seem to be able to hear sometimes is the voice of the evil one, when you feel all alone, when you feel sometimes like you can't go on. But those are the very dynamics God uses to make your life more powerful than it's ever been before.
Because you're out of resources, you get to see how big God is - because everything else is out of the way. It's in the wilderness time that you see how much you can handle with the very big God you discovered there - more than you ever dreamed you could handle. It's in the wilderness that you can finally see what really matters and what really doesn't. Your struggle forces you deeper into the holiness and power of your God than you've ever been before. And when you come out of the wilderness, you really know you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength (Philippians 4:13).
It is the deserts of your life that turn you from being a wimp to being a warrior. And there is no shortcut through or around the wilderness in that process. There wasn't for Jesus - there isn't for you. If you're in the wilderness right now, step back for a moment and see what it's really for - it's God's school for a warrior, a place to know Him and yourself more than you ever have before. And then, when you face the stresses and obstacles that may have once defeated you, you can show them your shirt. "I can handle this - I've been to the wilderness."