God, as a loving parent teaches us to grow and mature in our knowledge of Him. For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding (Pr. 2:6).

After our born again experience things seem wonderful. For the first time in our lives we have peace and real joy. Everywhere we go we want to tell others about our newfound life in Jesus Christ. It seems that at every turn God is there to share His life with us. We have joy in reading the Bible and to talk with other christians is such a treasure that we feel like we have found a real family. Every day seems to be filled with excitement and wonder at the revelation of God's love and goodness to us, and we know that He is "what" we've been looking for all of our lives. He is there as a loving parent and seems to hear us every time we talk to Him in prayer; just as a natural parent has their ears tuned to the slightest cry or whimper of their newborn to check and see that they ok. It seems that this wonderful time of blessing and excitement will never end. BUT - it does.

Somehow as we continue in our new life things take on a different shape. All of the sudden it is hard to read the Bible; it seems kinda dry and we don't always understand what it is saying. The joy seems to dry up too; no matter what we do it just seems that things are different. It seems that God isn't as near as he used to be; that he moved on to other things and doesn't have time for ur prayers anymore.

Then problems start to mount up. We find ourselves struggling with old habit patterns that we can't get free from. People around us start to talk behind our back and shun our presence. We may loose our job or loose our house or apartment. The people in the church may seem distant or cold as they greet you with their smiles, but don't really understand your struggles. Your car may break down, bills go unpaid, or your health fails and you may end up in the hospital. And all the while it seems that God has left and that He is indifferent to your suffering. It seems that this God that you gave your life to cannot really be trusted in the everyday reality of life. You may counsel with the leadership in the church and all they can tell you is to "let go and let God". That only adds to the frustration; what does that mean?

All the while it seems if everyone else in the is prospering. Things are going good for others, and you think that you must not really have enough faith or something; or God really doesn't love you or something; or; or; or. And the list could go on and on in this place where you can't find God's peace and just can't figure out where He went or what to do.
You had a taste and now it all seems so distant; and yet the memory of that taste will not allow you to return fully into the things of the world that you did before you knew about God and it seems that you just don't fit in the "church".

Have you ever felt this way? Ever felt as if God's presence has removed from your life and He can't hear your cry? That you need help, can't find God, and don't know where to turn? This was written with you in mind. This was written for all those who, after they have come to know Jesus Christ as their savior, feel lost and don't know what is happening and can't find God.

When an eagle is ready to bear young she will build a nest in which to lay her eggs. The nest, being built on the cliffs of the rocks or high in a tree, is safe from all predators that might harm the newborn chicks when they are born. The nest is built in layers with the first being large sticks, brush and thorns. The finishing layers are built of softer materials such as leaves, grass and moss.

When the eagle's young are born they cry constantly for food, which is supplied in abundance by the mother. It seems that every time the chicks cry, the mother is right there to feed them to the full.

During this time, when the chicks vision becomes sharper, the parents model to the chicks what adulthood holds in store for them, a life of free flight and adventure outside of the nest. During the night the mother is always there covering her young with her feathers and protecting them from all dangers of predators and weather.

There comes a time in the young eaglet's development when the mother has to teach them to leave the nest and fly. The first thing that the mother does is remove the inner layers of the nest that are made of the softer materials like leaves, grass and moss. This leaves the young uncomfortable. All it's life has been spent in the comfort and soft layers of the nest that were carefully prepared for it before it was born; now though, the softness is gone. There are sticks and thorns that protrude out into the once comfortable nest, so that the eaglet can't really get comfortable.

When we look and consider the knowledge that God gave to the eagle, how she teaches her young, we see that God operates in much the same way.

God's purpose is to bring many sons unto maturity in Him. Just as the parent eagle removes the soft and comfortable surroundings of the nest, so too God allows our surroundings to be made uncomfortable.

Contrary to the false grace taught in America (that God wants to bless you, but will never send hardship your way), this is true Grace. He stops feeding us (His Word) in the same way, and when He does speak His Word it isn't very often. He has to mature us.
 
Maturity isn't natural; it is supernatural. It is overseen by an intervening parent, the authority and sovereignty of God. God's love and purpose compel Him to bring us "out of the nest". Only after we are out of the nest will we understand what true freedom is; only after we are out of the nest will we learn to "fly" in the heights of who God calls us to be in Jesus Christ. This is a supernatural work!

Your hard circumstances are ordained by God to bring you to the next stage of growth in Him. He has removed the once comfortable surroundings of "leaves and moss" and has seemingly left you alone to provoke you to look outside the "nest." The fact that you can't seem to hear from Him isn't because He doesn't want to speak, but that How he speaks to you is changed. He is no longer just the One who saved you when you first believed, but is also the One that will mature you.

God, as a good parent has designed a perfect pathway to mature all of his children, but it isn't pleasant to the flesh. It doesn't feel good, but it is necessary for real life and purpose to be realized. This process is called chastening. It provides correction and direction in a right relationship with God. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth (Heb. 12:6). Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby (Heb. 12:11).

Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise (Isa. 43:18-21).

There is a people that God has formed for Himself. The original Hebrew for the word formed = to mold into a form through squeezing into shape. These people will show forth (talk, declare, and recount) the reality of God. They will bring forth glory unto his name as His living witnesses in the Earth, testifying to the existence and love of the One True and Living God.

Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour. I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God (Isa. 43:10-12).

This is God's new thing. This is not the same old "religious" formulas with just a little more human effort; this is something that God Himself is forming and has nothing to do with the efforts of man. God tells us to forget about the former things; The former way that He used to talk to us; the former way that things used to be; to let go of the comfort of the "nest" where everything is provided for us and seems so comfortable. To let go of who you thought He was as your savior and enter into the maturity of recognizing him as the Absolute Sovereign Ruler of the universe.

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you (Phil. 3:13-15).

God does the work! God does the work, but there is a process that we must go through. What is the process? Plain and simple, it is the wilderness.

Wilderness, noun [from wild] 1. A desert; a tract of land or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings, whether a forest or a wide barren plain. 3. A state of disorder. -Webster-

From Websters dictionary we get the definition of wilderness. A place that is uncultivated, wild, desolate and left to itself; isolated. A place where no one wants to live because it doesn't hold any promise of life. No water, no vegetation; hot and flat. Even the landscape in the desert wilderness is unappealing, being destitute of any significant contrasts, only sand pile after sand pile. The only wildlife in the wilderness are those animals that can go long times without water and are usually venomous and poisonous, such as the scorpion and snake.

Yet this is the place that God sovereignly leads His people. Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her (Hos. 2:14). The wilderness, a place of isolation, brokenness and lack of vision is always the place that God the Father leads his chosen in order to speak to them. The wilderness is the place where things are not seen with the natural eyes, for there is no life to depend upon there except for the life of God.

Yes, in the barren wilderness of rejection, strife, and family troubles, with no one to comfort us, we learn to walk by faith.
 
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2Cor. 4:18).

We are brought into a level of true vision in the wilderness. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible (Heb. 11:27). And we learn to endure and see Him who is invisible. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2a);

Yes, this is the place of God's sovereignty in revealing himself. He is the one who starts us on this journey of faith and will complete it in us in the revelation of Himself.

In the wilderness you don't always know where you're going. It is uncharted and unmarked territory. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went (Heb. 11:8).

Your hope becomes wholly fixed in Him who called you. You've left the comfortable, plush surroundings of mediocre religiosity. You've left the dead traditions of man-made formulas and doctrines behind and have set out for a place that you have never seen and don't know where it is. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:10).

In the wilderness you have become completely aware that only what God does will last. I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him (Eccl. 3:14).

In the wilderness we focus our vision to that which God has established, His eternal Kingdom, that which has a foundation that He has laid. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ (1Cor. 3:11). God's Kingdom alone will not be shaken or destroyed. Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain (Heb. 12:26-27).


 In this desert wilderness thankfulness starts to flood your heart as you realize that God has truly shown His love to you by calling you out of the ordinary, day to day life of the flesh.
Thankfulness that he has taken the time to allow all the circumstances in your life to be unstable, something that you can't put your hope in and depend on.

What?? Thank God for all these trials? For all this rejection and loneliness? Yep! But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world (1Cor. 11:32).
 
Yes, everything that can be shaken will be. This is a sovereign move of God's Spirit. There is a God that judges in the Earth. He judges right judgement and through this wilderness he causes our focus and dependence to shift off of the things of this present world. The things of this world will not last; they will be shaken and will fall - this wilderness of pain is God's sovereign move of grace and mercy to us.

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear (Heb. 12:28).

When we embrace God's call and promise we become strangers to every man-made system and man-made institution on the Earth. There is no life in that which man creates. This is the wilderness! These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city (Heb. 11:13-16).

When we find ourselves in the wilderness it becomes plain and clear that we can no longer return to the "status quo" of everyday life. We no longer fit into the world, and neither do we want to fit in...know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God (Jms. 4:4b).

In the wilderness God sovereignly forms us for himself; he creates within us a hope that the world cannot fulfill. These are the people that God has formed for himself. These are the people that will show forth His praise and witness to the earth of the life of the Son of God!

And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth (Heb. 11:36-38). This is the wilderness!