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These Saturday reflections are part of the landscape that shaped The Desert Walk—a Lenten journey born from learning to trust God’s presence in seasons of waiting and healing. (Click here to read last week’s post)
Standing at the Edge of a New Season
There is a particular stillness that settles in after Christmas.
The excitement fades. The gatherings slow. The calendar begins to open again.
And we find ourselves standing at the edge of a new season—unsure whether to move forward quickly or linger a little longer in what just was. For me, this season is a treasure, one I like to savor.
The desert also has a way of slowing everything down.
There are no shortcuts here. No quick fixes. No rushing the process.
The sun rises when it rises. The ground yields only what it is ready to give. And the journey unfolds one step at a time.
The Desert’s Slow Work
Waiting in the desert is not a passive activity, but a formative one.
We often arrive in desert seasons eager for resolution. We want clarity, direction, reassurance. We want to know how long and what comes next. But the desert rarely answers those questions on our timeline. Instead, it asks something deeper of us: trust.
Trust Formed in the Waiting
Scripture reminds us that God does some of His most intimate work in places of waiting. Israel wandered for years before entering the Promised Land. Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness before beginning His public ministry. Again and again, the desert becomes the space where our hearts are prepared long before outcomes are revealed.
Waiting strips us of the illusion that we are in control.
It invites us to loosen our grip on certainty.
It teaches us to listen more closely for God’s presence rather than His plans.
In seasons of waiting, God is not absent. He is attentive. He is shaping something beneath the surface—patience where there was striving, trust where there was fear, surrender where there was withholding.
The Quiet Gift of the Desert
And perhaps this is the quiet gift of the desert: it forms us into people who can walk by faith instead of by sight.
In these days after Christmas—when the world seems to move on quickly—we are invited not to rush past what God may still be doing within us. The desert reminds us that becoming often happens slowly, quietly, and unseen.
And when the time comes to move forward, we will discover that the waiting was never wasted—that the desert was not about where we were going, but about who we were becoming along the way.
2 Responses
Waiting, breathing, gently knowing that He will lead us on where He well and where
we best should be. Thank you, Leslie for these precious thoughts.
Such a challenge to wait, breathe, and know that God wants the best for us. Especially hard during those long seasons of waiting. Where He leads, though, I want to go! Thanks for all your comments and support!