When we feel broken and lost, especially if you believe in God, God seems distant. You feel abandoned. You don’t feel the presence of Holy Spirit. Maybe you’re doing all the same things you did in past seasons, but you feel hopeless, purposeless. I’ve been there. I felt so guilty for feeling hopeless and fearful until I got some help from people I love and trust. They gave me tools for coping in these seasons that I still use today. Here’s how to survive when you feel broken and lost.
What is a wilderness season? How do I know if I’m in one?
The times I have felt broken and most characteristically what I would call a “wilderness season.” The wilderness is a very common theme in the Bible that shows a place of desperation, hopelessness, need, and loneliness. While we don’t often travel through an actual wilderness in the modern world, we do find ourselves there in a spiritual sense.
So now that we understand what a wilderness season is, how can you tell if you’re in a wilderness season? What does your worship feel like? Are you praying, crying out, reading your bible, but you feel like you’re getting nowhere? Do you feel stuck? Maybe you feel numb. When these feelings hit, it’s easy to feel something’s wrong. We cry out, “Lord, where are you? Don’t you care that I’m in this place?”
The truth about the devil – he is a liar.
Jesus Himself found himself in a wilderness season. You can read about it in Matthew 4:1-11. Repeatedly, the devil says, “If you are the son of God.” This is right after God has spoken through the sky in a very dramatic moment, “THIS IS MY SON IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED.” God speaks truth and the devil comes in to question that very truth to tempt Jesus to believe a lie.
The same thing happens in our lives. The devil is still a liar, and he will do whatever it takes to get us to leave behind the truth of God’s word: who God is and who God says we are. In a wilderness season we are often most susceptible to believing those lies.
There are two types of lies I’ve seen come at me through the years.
- Identity Lies – A lie I’m believing about myself.
- Security Lies – A lie I’m believing about God.
Next, let’s look at a few of the lies you may be believing in a wilderness season.
- Identity: I’m not worthy, I’m unlovable, I’m broken…
- Security: I’m not being taken care of. God’s not good. If God was really good He’d get me out of this situation.
When I was in one of my worst wilderness seasons. There was one ultimate lie I found myself believing.
The lie of ABANDONMENT
ABANDONMENT looks like two lies wrapped up into one ugly gift:
- God isn’t here.
- God doesn’t care about me.
When we believe this lie, hopelessness, fear and doubt can all start to creep in before we even realize it.
How To Find Hope Again
Now that we’ve started to grasp the concept of the lie of abandonment, in the next post, we’ll dive into a story from the Bible where God’s people navigated a wilderness season and the hope that God gives them in the middle of it.
