I don’t fear the wilderness

There was a time I feared the wilderness.

Every shadow looked like a threat. Every silence felt like abandonment. Every unmarked path, a cruel test I never asked to take. I walked in circles, second-guessing every step, wondering if I had wandered too far or if I was ever truly led at all. The howling winds seemed to mock me. The dry seasons choked the hope right out of me. I called it wild…because I did not yet understand it. Because I did not yet know Him.

But the wilderness is only wild to the one who hasn’t learned to trust their Guide.

Now—slowly, reverently—I’m learning.

The terrain hasn’t changed. It’s still rugged and unpredictable. But something in me has. I’m beginning to see that the very conditions I begged Him to change… were the same ones He was using to change me. The isolation that once unnerved me has become an invitation. The detours that once discouraged me have become divine delays. The exposure that once left me trembling has become the proving ground for a deeper faith.

And maybe… just maybe… He meant for it to be uncomfortable.

Not to punish me—

but to move me.

Move me out of complacency.

Move me from performance to presence.

Move me from fear to faith.

Move me from relying on myself to clinging wholly, desperately, to Him.

Because when everything else is stripped away, the only thing that remains is who He is—and who I am becoming in His hands.

And now I see it:

He was with me the whole time.

In the dry stretches, He was the hidden well.

In the storms, He was the shelter I didn’t recognize until I needed it.

In the wandering, He was the compass within me, whispering, “This way, beloved. Trust Me.”

What once terrified me now testifies for me.

The wild places don’t scare me like they used to—because I’ve come to know the language of the wind. I’ve come to recognize the fingerprints of grace on the barren ground. I’ve come to expect Him in unexpected places.

So I will keep walking.

Even when the path disappears beneath my feet.

Even when the sky goes dark again.

Even when my heart aches to go back to something familiar.

Because I know now:

I’m not lost.

I’m led.

And the One who guides me does not waste wilderness.

He uses it—to mature me, refine me, break me open, and rebuild me in the image of trust.

So let the wilderness come.

Let it roar.

Let it rage.

I have a Guide now.

And He knows the way.