This Desert is for my RESTORATION

Read Hosea 2:14-20 NLT before proceeding

When God brings us into a wilderness situation, what He is truly seeking from us is INTIMACY.

The desert/wilderness is the place where you are deprived of all the "blings" of the world which could distract you - therefore, your spirit is forced to focus on God.

In the desert God finds the PRIVACY that He needs to communicate with you, to impart into you, and share Himself with you.

The wilderness is the place where God gets to strip you of the false identity and characteristics you acquired from the world so He can reveal your true identity. The one He purposed you to be. You get to face God, naked, completely vulnerable - perfections and imperfections exposed. Fully loved, fully accepted, fully treasured, and filled with purpose.

God has no desire to inflict pain upon His bride, but only to see her flourish. And when we give Him our undivided attention, we not only meet greater depths of God, but we meet ourselves.

We meet the things we like, and the things we don’t like. We meet our passions and our burdens. We see clearly without blur or confusion. We gain insight into mysteries that were unknown to us.

Your wilderness is there to shape you, refine you, and restore unto you the glory God designed for you. More importantly, your wilderness is the door to your next encounter with God.

I know you thought you knew Him, you thought you understood Him, you thought you could hear Him perfectly. You thought you could feel His heartbeat. You thought you reached a place of stability in your knowledge of God.

Your wilderness is a knocking. A knocking to remind you there is more. There is deeper. To inform you what you lost can be restored even more gloriously. To communicate the desire of God’s heart to your heart. That desire is for you to ultimately be His bride. To be faithful to Him. To share all that you are with Him. To gift Him intimacy with you.

So take a deep breath and make this declaration:

No desert season is designed to kill me. Every desert season God allows me to experience is an opportunity to give me life. God has a plan to RESTORE me, even in the desert. The Lord is my oasis in the desert, in Him alone I am satisfied. In Jesus Name, Amen!

With love,