The Desert Place

James 1:2 “My brothers, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way” (TEV)

The Bible speaks of the need for both working and resting. We may dread times of forced inactivity, but when God puts us on the sideline, He does so because He loves us. Perhaps He wants us to evaluate our spiritual status or to renew our strength for some future crisis or just to worship Him.

An anonymous writer put it like this:

Did He set you aside when the fields were ripe

And the workers seemed too few?

Did He set you aside and give someone else

The task you so longed to do?

Did He set you aside when the purple grapes

Hung low in the autumn sun?

And did hands not your own just gather them in—

The trophies you'd almost won?/ Did He set you aside on a couch of pain —

There where all you could do was pray?

And then when you whispered, 'Oh, please let me go,'

Was His answer always, 'Stay'?

Did He set you aside with no plan at all —

With no reason that you could see,

While your heart cried out, 'In this limited space,

Lord, how can I work for Thee?'

Did He set you aside with a heavy cross,

And was your heart filled with despair?

Did you think He had gone and left you alone,

Then suddenly He was there?

And there in the shadows, the world all shut out,

Just kneeling alone at His feet,

Did you learn the answers (though not all yet) ?

Say, weren't His reasons sweet?"
 

Yes, for the trusting child of God, the "desert place" of trial and affliction can become a place of preparation for greater service.