Recently, my son showed me this movie trailer that really caught my attention. It’s a movie, starring Ewan McGregor about Jesus’ last days in the desert of temptation.
Sometimes life or marriage can feel like you are in a desert. You feel like you are going from one side of something to another with only the shirt on your back, food and water. You are getting just enough to sustain yourself but you are not quite in the land flowing with milk and honey.
Jesus spent 40 days in the desert without any food being tempted with every fleshly desire there is to man. This experience was right before he was about to embark on one of the biggest missions in the world.
Most of you are not about to be launched into some big mission in life, but some of you are, at the least, experiencing new opportunities to share the journey you have been on in your marriage with another couple or with the people who have seen you in the midst of your struggles.
The question is, are you ready? Have you spent your time in the desert well? So what does time in the desert of your marriage look like? It’s the time when you can’t meet your spouse’s needs or your needs aren’t being met. It’s the time when one person can’t give anything for the reasons of illness, busyness, or just not being present. During this time will you still believe? Will you still love? Will you turn and run back to Egypt and die? Or will you stand firm and live out your God given destiny to be an overcomer?
For some of you it may feel like you are rounding 40 years in the desert instead of 40 days. When a group of people called the Israelites spent 40 years in the desert, instead of the 11 days it supposedly should have taken, it was because of their lack of faith. They grumbled about what they didn’t have and even wanted to return to slavery to get what they had before. How crazy is that?
Actually, it’s not too crazy when you think of how husbands and wives bicker. Sometimes there’s marital infidelity or people leave their spouse and their kids.
I’ve seen the desert. I’ve been in the desert and in some ways I am in a desert. I’ve complained. I’ve whined. I have made my own idols and even thought about going back to Egypt. However, at the end of the day, I know that what God has for me on the other side of this desert is way more than I can think, ask for, or imagine. I pray that as we all learn to sit in our deserts that we will overcome the temptations that come our way. We need to wait and be grateful, believing that what we are looking for is right around the corner.
By Jen Morgan