Surgery

 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Matthew 4:1

If you truly walk with Jesus, sooner or later, you'll be led into the "wilderness" just as He was. We will encounter so many different circumstances, obstacles, and feelings. We will encounter the devil for sure, as he seeks to turn us back from following Him. We will also encounter our God, and in ways we have never expected or experienced before.

For most of us, when we do enter our personal wilderness, whatever the root cause of it might be, our emphasis is generally on just getting through. We want to come out on the other side of it. We see it as something to be endured. God means it to be a place of inner transformation.

I listened recently to a woman named Jennifer Benfield speak of her own wilderness experience. Her focus had been on achievement, success, and living her dream life. All that changed when she and her husband learned that they would be having a Down's Syndrome child. Her world was shattered. She was in a place she never wanted to be and she didn't believe she could make it through. She was advised to abort the pregnancy, but as a believer she knew she could not. She also didn't know how she could cope with the reality that was hers. As she entered her wilderness, she began to learn about herself and her God in ways she never dreamed possible. She also discovered what it is that the Lord seeks most to do in every wilderness He leads His people through. Spiritual open heart surgery.

She said that while we focus on getting through, the Lord seeks to get us to undergo. Undergo His deep surgery into our hearts and lives. In His surgery He probes into all the areas of our lives that are keeping us from all the fullness He has for us. He realized that His best operating rooms are always found in our own wilderness. He does intensive surgery on us there, and He means for it to be complete. Attitudes, desires, habits, and a host of other things that keep us from wholeness in Him are "under His knife" as He extracts them from our life.

You may be in your own wilderness right now. The obstacles are real just as Satan's attacks are real. How do you face it? Do you scream for Him to take you out and to do so right now? Failing that, do you just hope to get through it without too much loss? Or, do you surrender to His sovereign leading and undergo what He means to do in you in this place. That's what Jennifer Benefield did, and she not only finds herself the mother of a special and beautiful little boy, one she can't imagine living without. She also finds herself with a ministry she never envisioned would be given her. A ministry that gives hope to all those who come after her, entering into their own personal wilderness. The Father's surgery was successful. So will it be for you, if you're willing to undergo it. Are you willing?

When He leads us through a wilderness, I think His greatest purpose is to so work in us that when we emerge from it, we are able to offer help, encouragement, and guidance to those who come behind us. That purpose will be realized....if we undergo the surgery. If....

Blessings,
Pastor O