LIFE SCRIPTS

Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.
Mark 1:12‭-‬13 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/mrk.1.12-13.NKJV

There something about the way Mark communicates. He seems to have an urgency in his communication especially in this piece about Christ in the wilderness. At first we see how Christ ended up in the wilderness. He was ‘driven’ there by the Spirit. The wildernesses is never a place of comfort. I’ve had an opportunity of being driven through a rocky desert in Marsabit county in northern Kenya. The journey through the desert was treacherous to say the least. All I could see for a whole 2-3 hours were stones and rocks. No human, no animal, no life. Yet the Spirit of God led Christ to such a place. Why? It seemed as if in scripture people who were being prepared by God for a certain task used to have an experience in the wilderness at some point. Paul while writing the book of Galatians spoke of sojourning in Arabia for 3 years, Moses lived in the deserts of Midian for over 40 years while tending after his father in law’s flock, David, while a teenager tended after his father’s flock in the wilderness before his calling. The wilderness is a hostile place. But its also a place where total dependence on God is cultivated. Verse 13 speaks of how angels ministered to Christ as He sojourned in the desert. Mark even tells us about wild animals that dwelt alongside with Christ. Christ was exposed not only to the wicked one but also to earthly risks like wild beasts. Yet God sustained Him. Angels ministered to Him. He fully relied on God for His sustenance. We might not be walking through a physical desert today but at times we live through desert experiences. When challenge after challenge seems to hit us, when life becomes bitter and too hard to handle, when we lose loved ones, live through a financial crisis, struggle in our marriages, lose our source of livelihood, lose friends. When all support structures are removed from around us and we have no where to turn to, what is our source of hope? God is. He’s the One who can sustain us through the wilderness experiences and protect us from harm.