The Gift of The Wilderness is one of the hardest gifts to receive because while your in it, it sure doesn’t feel life a gift. On the contrary, it feels like a curse. In the natural nothing grows in the wilderness, but in the spiritual, growth and fruitfulness is accelerated there. Punning appears to be about reduction, and loss, but the truth is punning is for the purposes of accelerating fruitfulness. When you look at S.S 8 along with Matt.4, and Luke 4 there are some awesome things you discover that the wilderness yields in our lives. For one, according to Song of Solomon 8, it’s in the wilderness that you learn how to lean on your beloved. The Wilderness can be a very lonely place, even though people may be all around you. In that lonely place you draw closer to the Lover of Your Soul than ever before, and in new ways He becomes YOUR Beloved. There are times in that barren place where we don’t even feel like seeking Him, but He knows His way around the Wilderness, so He knows where to look for us, so He can draw us close, to lay our head on His chest, so we can hear His heartbeat. As you fall more in love with Him you also learn to lean (trust) on Him with new depth. The Wilderness renders us vulnerable and desperate, the two atmospheres that cultivate LEANING. It is there that we learn that if He doesn’t keep us in the next moment we are sunk.
Remember that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Don’t believe the lie that you are there because you’ve done something wrong. That could be true, but the Holy Spirit will make that very clear. Even then, it’s a grace for God to use to bring us to repentance and deliverance. The Father had just declared that Jesus was His Beloved Son, and that He was well pleased with Him. The wilderness is not about judgement. It is about expansion and fruitfulness. It is God’s strange gift. We will talk more about it tomorrow. Have a great day leaning on your Beloved.
