Don't Forget Your Wilderness!
Behind every success is a story. A starter street to every Star. Every man that climbed into limelight today that we see and love all had those crucial moments of their lives that formed the texture of the expression they have become today.
Moses was such a man!
A prince that escaped Egypt as a refugee, self-exiled into a foreign land. A land to say a mile off in comparison to where he came from, is a drastic understatement. He was a prince of Egypt and a potential heir to the then world power. But heaven thought different!
Destiny drove this once high and esteemed man into Midian and he soon found himself a sheep herder in the desert. Not just an ordinary desert but the back sides of the desert, it felt as though he had hit rock bottom. How did a once king maker find himself in this position. But it was written in aeons now captured in time because a man yielded. A deliverer in the making... A King's man fractured and mended in a fashion that can be relaunched back into Egypt to break pharoah's stronghold and discipline the principalities of that land.
"Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb"
(Exodus 3:1)
There is something called "the backside of the desert"..... It is a wilderness protocol where princes are forged. Though he led the flock, he was out of his depth, out of alignment in the shepherd's curriculum affairs but it was a wilderness path that was the only route heaven needed to propel him to Horeb.....the mountain of God!
There are protocols of encounters that can only happen through the pathway of the wilderness. Every man that became a rod in the hand of Abba were accustomed to these paths. For Joseph who eventually ruled in the land of Egypt, scriptures showed his path....
"Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him"...
(Psalm 105:19)
The wilderness will test you. It will keep you grounded by administering discipline and control to the very excesses that limited you.
Do you remember days when even though finances didn't add up, you were determined to please God in obeying him despite the prevailing circumstances?
When you had to give to help others despite the fact that you were managing to keep up?
When you converted the hardtimes and cashless situations into fasting seasons inorder to improvise and to you it wasn't a burden rather you rejoiced in Christ and counted no offense.
When it was as though no matter how much you tried, men bypassed you and mates seemed to be on faster trajectory than you. You felt forgotten, rejected and left out. Yet you converted the shame to currency that forged an inner strength for prayers.
Days where even though God didn't show up and your answers seemed a distant mile away but yet you kept your station and never withdrew your knees in prayers.
Days when it was easy to lock up yourself away from friends and neighbours to seek the God that dwelt in secret not just for breakthrough but for him to show you his face and even if it's for half a chance you might see his face. The awesome days and nights that his presence precipitated on you and brought tears to your brows as you sustained the "that I may know you" posture.
The days when all the comfort of this world, the bank account, the delicacies of food, warmth of the pillow and bed, couldn't suffice a deep hunger you have for him and nothing can satisfy that deep that crieth and pants for a depth on his presence could feel. You could die for just one breathe of his refreshing presence.
The days when you never knew what fame, limelight and stage was. Honorarium was never in your vocabulary nor dictionary. You preached in season and out of season without compulsion. All that mattered to you was his divine approval, relationship and presence.
They were days of pain, lack, discomfort and relegation but you kept believing, trusting, praying, obeying, loving and daring, submitting, living and hoping that your redeemer will be your reward.
"And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel..."
(Luke1:80)
When the days of your showing comes, do not forget your Wilderness. Those days forged you!!! They must not be trivialised. They must not be seen as affliction that have been overcome. It was a season that midwifed your emergence today. Your coming to Horeb wouldn't have been possible if your paths through such dark forsaken alleys of the backside didn't usher you in.
Horeb... The place of encounters! Where the Shekinah blazes, the glory of the immortal one was revealed to end the leprosy and serpentine nature of man in order to forge a man, a rod and a hand that will break Pharoah for good.
Quit shouting revival, portals and dimensions, value your Wilderness and die the very death that is required for you to live the life designed and fulfil the destiny written.
For most of us , these deaths will be an ever present event until the end of our journeys here on this divide. Like Apostle Paul death kept working in him inorde that life will be sustained through his vessel.
Oh Minister of God, have you forgotten your Wilderness so soon because God has favoured you in many areas???
Your present preachings has negated the very protocol by which you emerged.
How can life be sustained in the absence of deaths???
Let's go back today, The Horeb horizon beckons only for men who has walked the backsides of the desert.
May God supply the grace required as we sustain the impact of these routes and navigate paths that bring us to encounters.
Have you forgotten so soon???
Lord have mercy and help us!!!
Your brother,
-Sorochi Adiuku.
