In A Wilderness by Samantha Yakobchuk

I don’t pretend to know what God is doing these days.

I write this in the middle of quarantine and social isolation.  It’s week 3 since the nation started shutting down and I’m living in the epicenter of it all. I hear the stories of friends of friends and loved ones of loved ones and the grief is compounded daily.

I’m a facts and figures person. I love numbers. I’ve been keeping track of all the data I’ve possibly could up to this point. I want so badly to see the evidence of what we’re doing in the numbers, but I know that it’s a process. It won’t happen right away.

We live in a season of stillness right now – we, collectively. All of us are living this.

I’m a bit humbled here because I remember the personal seasons of stillness I’ve walked through in the past year. I remember the words God spoke to me, how stillness is not stagnancy. Rather, our stillness is the avenue to be able to watch Him work.

I surrendered my idea of a perfect life last year, and I decided to walk the unknown, trusting that God was who He said He was, that He was the one who makes a way in the wilderness. I learned to trust that, as hard as it was, I didn’t have to see the way in front of me if I knew that He was the one leading me.

I’ve since watched Him make ways in wildernesses where I saw absolutely no way out. I’ve seen Him hold my heart and the desires that were in it. I’ve seen the fruition of promises. I’d been rendered completely useless through it all, but I saw how He was able to do what I had always wanted but could never accomplish in my own way.

I don’t pretend to know what God is doing these days, but I know that I’m nothing short of excited for what’s coming.

The Israelites were in captivity for hundreds of years and God finally freed them, led by Moses across the Red Sea in the most awe-inspiring God-moment they could never have imagined.

He promised to take them somewhere, to a land flowing with milk and honey, but they did not cross the Red Sea into that Promised Land.

They were freed from slavery into the wilderness.

The Israelites didn’t handle this time well. They complained about the food they ate, about the shoes they wore. They were afraid of what could happen in the middle of nowhere. They had no home. They were in uncharted territory, unprecedented circumstances.

They craved meat (see Numbers 11).

They were hungry and watched how God provided their daily bread every morning with the morning dew, always in the exact quantity they needed, and they couldn’t stop thinking about meat. They used to have their fill of meat back in Egypt, they claimed – the same Egypt where they were forced into slavery, the same Egypt where they cried to God for a rescue.

But did they really miss Egypt?

Or did they just crave normalcy?

They were in a wilderness, unsure of where they would be the following day and they had the memory of surviving in Egypt.

When you’re in the middle of the unknown, survival mimics security.

I don’t pretend to know what God is doing these days, but these days feel a lot like a wilderness.

In true character, God had a purpose in the wilderness season for the Israelites (see Deuteronomy 8:2-5). He wanted to humble them. He wanted them to depend on Him. He wanted to make sure they knew that they did not survive the wilderness on their own means.

No detailed is overlooked with God. The world is shaken right now and we live in the midst of riddles and mysteries. We’re at a standstill.

Maybe this is where we learn to stop depending on ourselves.

Maybe this is where we can throw our hands up, forfeit our ways, and free-fall into surrender.

Maybe this is where we allow God to display Himself in all His glory, on a grand scale, for all to see.

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I don’t pretend to know what God is doing these days, but I know what He did in those days.

I know how He led His people. I know how He cared for them. I know how He provided for them.

I know how He led them to that Promised Land.

And I know that He remembered their desires, for something even so small as meat (Deuteronomy 12:20).

Samantha Yakobchuk is a writer, wife, mom, and lifelong Christian. After playing the church part for 27 years other life and doing all the good Christian things in order to earn favor, she gave it all up so she could find Jesus Himself. She knows there is more that our souls crave and she wants everyone to know how simple it is to find Him.
She's written Unwavering, a devotional book. https://amzn.to/3aGHyFW

She also writes regularly on Instagram.@samanthayakobchuk @unwaveringco