Years ago, a verse in Jeremiah stood out.

“The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness.” Jeremiah 31:2

The Israelites had it hard in Egypt, and while they were freed, they still were in the wilderness for a long time. It was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. They often complained,

“Why would God bring us out here to die? We might as well have stayed in Egypt for as bad as this is.”

We do not know about you, but we tend to sound the same way, because we truly wonder, what is the point of following God if we are stuck in the “wilderness” where we will perish? If we aren’t doomed without Him, at least our now will be better than the wilderness we are currently in.

What we have to remember in those times, and what the Israelites needed to remember, is that the wilderness is not the end. The wilderness is just part of the journey, something that we go through. There is more. There is a promised land. We tend to think that our personal wilderness will last forever, and usually they are not nearly as long as the forty years that the Israelites wandered around in theirs. At my age, forty years is literally a lifetime, and on average it is half of a lifetime. Even then, it is still not forever.

Ever since I was a child, I have listened to a radio drama called Adventures in Odyssey. (If you are a Christian Homeschooler, you surely know what I am talking about.) It is produced by Focus on the Family, and for years has been a staple of truth and entertainment in my life that our children now enjoy. Through social media, I was able to “connect” with one of the creators of the show.

Imagine my delight when I got to be “friends” with someone who had influenced so much of my spiritual growth in life. After a particularly difficult time, where I had shared some of life’s hurt and mess on my social media page, he left this comment.

“Remember where you are in the story.”

The words pierced just as so much of his work had done. So often in life we get bogged down by the now, that we forget that we are in the middle of the story, our story, and the Big Story. The wilderness is just part of the journey. It is not the end. Anyone who has been around our family for a time has heard us say, “There’s more than this.”

(2 Corinthians 4:18) This phrase is a constant reminder that the story is not over. There is more than we can see, more than we can fathom.

After pondering on the verse from Jeremiah for years, I came across a devotion titled “Grace in the Wilderness” from Daily Grace Co. In the very first lesson there was this reminder,

“God’s people are a people of the wilderness.”¹

The sentence took my breath away. It was a reminder that our circumstances and wilderness were not an accident. This was not some fluke where we took a wrong turn and ended up where we were. If we are going to follow God, we will go through the wilderness. Why is that so hard to remember? Maybe it is just us, but we suspect that others struggle with the same thing since Peter wrote about it when he said to not be surprised when hard things come, as if something weird were happening. (1 Peter 4:12)

Peter was writing at this time to the diaspora. This was the dispersion of Christians throughout the Roman empire due to persecution. We talk more about this later in the book, but there we see where he wrote to encourage them in their own wilderness. Thankfully, he shared a promise with this reminder. Do not be surprised, rejoice, because…”His glory will be revealed.” (4:13)

Just like the Israelites and the Christians in Peter’s day, we can cling to this truth. This world is not our home. A promised land is coming. We are just on the way there, and as God has taught us more and more what grace is, we know that He has given us grace in our wilderness. Being here now is proof of that. And as someone else said so much better than we could. “Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”²

Thanks be to God for His grace which finds us even in the wilderness.

¹ Kristin Schmucker, Grace in the Wilderness. (The Daily Grace Co.) P.11

² Newton, John, “Amazing Grace.” 1779