Anyone who knows me knows I can be a bit of a control freak.

I like to feel in control, I like to be prepared, I like to plan, I am the girl who time blocks her entire week down to thirty minute chunks.

My mom will tell you that when I was younger I would ask her what we were doing that day. She used to tell me her general plans but then realized that if we deviated from them in ANY way I had an emotional break down and would get so stressed I would bawl my eyes out.

(I still cringe inside when things change last minute but I don’t usually cry now. Okay, sometimes I still cry.)

I have never liked not knowing. I don’t like unpredictable things. I do not like wandering.

I like being productive. I like knowing I am in a good place. I like to have direction.

But I have been reading lately about the Israelites and how God had them wander in the dessert for 40 years (and then some). It took so long for them to get from Egypt to the promise land and you can see they have their moment’s of doubt as they cry out to Moses saying “DID GOD BRING US OUT HERE JUST TO DIE?”

And I’ve wondered the same thing. When you’ve been told that God has big plans for your life and then you find yourself at 24 struggling to be an adult and feeling like you have NO CLUE what you’re doing with your life…you start to wonder if God accidentally lost the blueprints for those big plans. You question where you’re supposed to go, what choice to make, and the next step in your path. I’ve definitely felt that wandering feeling. Like I am just walking around in circles killing time and going nowhere fast.

But as I have been reading the stories of Israel wandering in the dessert, I see that God didn’t just have them there to waste time. He had them there to prepare them, and more importantly, to show them His love. That’s the thing that’s funny about our life with God.

It’s the dessert moments where we truly experience how much He loves us, not the mountaintop experiences.

It’s in the dessert when we’re starving and God brings down manna, that we taste His compassion and goodness. It’s being in a landscape so dry and empty of anything resembling life, that allows God to provide and reveal Himself as the source of life. It usually takes us coming to the end of ourselves to realize we can’t make it on our own.

And so I try. I try to sit and say that I surrender. I surrender control and just ask for God to give me the answer and direction for whats next. And he laughs as He points out that I am still trying to get answers. By asking Him to just tell me what to do in feigned “surrender” I’m still just trying to know so that I can FEEL in control.

I laugh at myself because I didn’t see it at first but it’s true. I still ache to know and to have answers. But perhaps, right now I am in a dessert period for a reason. And I am sure that everything I am going through is meant to prepare me for what lies ahead. And perhaps part of this wilderness experience is the not knowing, the wandering, and I am beginning to allow myself to be okay with that.

For now, I will just focus on the next step and follow Him one day at a time.

 

perhaps you feel like you’re wandering in a dessert place too? Let me know in the comments and we can all walk through this place together.