Prophets in the Wilderness
junior desouza ministries
Junior deSouza Ministries juniordesouzaministries@msn.com
The Prophet's Wilderness
Date:
Mon, 19 May 2008 23:55:09 -0400 (EDT)
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The Prophet's Wilderness
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Moses...led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the
mountain
of God.
--Exodus 3:1
David stayed in the desert strongholds and in the hills of the Desert of Ziph.
--1Samuel 23:14
Elijah...went a day's journey into the desert.
--1Kings 19:3,4
...he [John] lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel.
--Luke 1:80
At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert
forty
days, being tempted by Satan.
--Mark 1:12,13
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Hi friends!
The prophet's wilderness. What a subject. May this writing help steer and
stabilize
developing prophets! Though I will address mainly prophetic persons, these concepts
are relevant on some level to all Christians.
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THE PROPHET'S WILDERNESS
The desert experience, or wilderness, is God's mandatory prerequisite to the prophetic
calling. A prophetic person never looks worse than while he/she is in-desert; and,
he never looks better than when he emerges as gold, mature in character and ace
in prophesying. Even though all Christians experience certain desert seasons, the
prophet's wilderness is unique in that it is typically longer in duration and broader
in revelatory production.
Biblically, the desert is constitutional to prophetic identity. Moses stumbled
upon
the burning bush and his prophetic calling in the desert (Ex 3:1-10). David blossomed
in his desert strongholds, writing many of his psalmic prophecies while there (1Sam
23:14). Elijah, when overcome with despair, ran to a prophetic fetal position--the
desert (1Ki 19:3,4). John the Baptist championed the prophet's wilderness, living
there in seclusion for extended seasons and even years (Lk 1:80, 3:2). Jesus, the
promised Messiah-Prophet, willingly resorted to desert places (NKJV Mk 1:45, Lk
5:16). Though desert places can be dry and wanting, maturing prophets come to find
a safety there, a place where their intense and introspective disposition can find
relief and equilibrium in God (Ps 55:6-8).
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The wilderness forces dependence
A prophet's greatest enemy is himself, not Jezebel or religious crustiness or a
satanic nemesis. Giftedness has greater power to lure a person into prideful self-sufficiency
than the Deceiver himself. Many profoundly gifted prophesiers have shipwrecked their
lives and ministries through such self-reliance or gift-reliance, drifting away
from daily dependence on Jesus Himself. Such prophets are runaway trains racing
toward a head-on collision with humbling and reckoning.
The desert is a place of lack, whether it be relational, social, ministerial, financial,
or some other personal need or want. Though God ultimately intends to fill what
is lacking, He will not do so until every semblance of self-sufficiency and self-dependence
is burned, baked, crushed, stomped, and obliterated by the heat. The burning desert
sands will scorch our pridefully calloused feet until, at last, we break and fall
to our knees in permanent dependence on Him. Hosea 13:5: I cared for you in the
desert, in the land of burning heat. God uses the desert to become our Caretaker,
melting away our "I can take care of myself" sickness. We will only come up from
the wilderness when we are sufficiently leaning on our Lover, not our self or our
gift. See the symbolism in Song of Songs 8:5: Who is this coming up from the desert
leaning on her lover?
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The wilderness cultivates intimacy
Hosea 2:14 tells us God uses deserts to cultivate intimacy with us: I am now going
to allure her;I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. The prophet's
temptation is to become so intercoursed with his gift so that he forsakes sweet
intimacy with the greatest Gift of all, our First Love Jesus. The greatest commandment
is not, "If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it" (Ro 12:6); it is, "Love
the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength" (Mk 12:29,30).
Just as God will not allow self-sufficiency, so also He will not allow us to intercourse
our souls with anything above Him. Like David, He will keep us in that desert stronghold
until we are daily singing and writing romantic psalms to Him. Like Israel, He will
allure us into the desert until we cherish His tender whispers, until that voice
becomes the central focus of our daily life and emotional well-being. Until personal
intimacy is greater than prophetic ministry.
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The wilderness acutes spiritual hearing
Deuteronomy 8:2,3 tells us the desert trains and sharpens our spiritual hearing,
making us acutely accurate in perceiving God's voice. Hosea 2:14 says God "speaks
tenderly" in the desert, and Psalm 29:8 says "the voice of the Lord shakes the desert".
Luke 3:2 shows us how prophetic messages come to the prophet in the desert. God
loves to open up and talk in deserts! Consequently, we learn how to hear Him.
You see, in the desert key blockages to perceiving God are dealt with and removed.
Loud negative emotions are faced, resolved, and silenced. Competing dreams are shattered,
leaving us blank and receptive to God's dream. Comfortable patterns are disrupted,
exposing misleading voices that spring from routine. Anytime our soul and body are
afflicted by lack, our spirit rises to attain the voice of God to sustain our total
being. During extended or repetitive deserts, the Christian becomes keen in perceiving
divine communications and movements. Since correct spiritual perception is the essence
of prophetic ministry, God will bake His prophets in deserts until their perceptive
blockages are melted, until prophetic purity with no mix is reached.
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The wilderness transforms character
Prophetic power captivates to such a degree that character problems can be obscured
and overlooked. Christian history is stained with almost-prophets who shipwrecked
their lives and ministries through egocentrism, emotional mismanagement, pernicious
habits, wildfire appetites, unhealthy relationships, major doctrinal deviations,
and so on.
We all come from Egypt, a place of sin slavery. We all need multiple deserts to
get Egypt out of our psycho-emotional root system. Some of the most destructive
people in all of Christianity are not false prophets, but true Christian prophets
who are unwilling to declare war on personal sin patterns. They possess a measure
of prophetic grace that draws followers, yet they wind up damaging those very followers
through their dysfunctions. They leave many wounded in their wake, hurting prophecy's
cause and credibility as well. If you read David's psalms that he wrote while living
in desert places, you will find him consistently mentioning personal sins, inner
healing, breaking codependence, and so on. The wilderness transforms character!
The time is fading fast when low character prophets are allowed to minister publicly.
Churches are tightening their grip on who holds the mic, being led by the Spirit
to place a higher premium on character quality and soundness.
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The wilderness destroys codependence
The Lord said in Jeremiah 17:5,6 that He uses the desert to deal with codependence,
people-pleasing, and fear of man. Of all ministries, the prophetic is probably most
easily polluted by codependence. Stories litter the Old Testament of false prophets
telling people what they wanted to hear simply to gain their approval. They muddied
the oracle of the Lord, prophesying from their imaginations and emotions.
Many, if not most, of our desert experiences pertain to people--their rejection,
persecution, gossip, misunderstanding, non-spiritualness, indifference, mockery.
God thrust us into this desert because we care too much! Oh how quickly our heat
would turn to cool waters if we would only become de-peopled! We all have a human
need to be loved and affimed by others. This is not wrong. This basic need morphs
into a sinful obsession when our emotional wellness is tied to people and their
reactions morethan to God. A prophesier must be so de-peopled that he senses a free-flowing
confidence to be, say, and do whatever he needs. God will loose the desert dogs
on us until we simply do not care anymore.
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The wilderness createsindividuation
One recurring problem I continually bump into is the lack of prophetic individuation.
I weary of hearing uniform "prophetic words" that are not very prophetic. Rather,
they are more of a regurgitation of the current spiritual fad. These "prophecies"
are thoroughly unmoving, fail to bear witness within, and exploit the ideals of
immature Christians. Sometimes I ask myself, "Does God not have more to say? Either
He is not very relevant and original, or some of these prophesiers have a high flesh-mixture
diluting or blocking the authentic word." I am well aware that God speaks thematically
and consistently. Equally so, He speaks with uncanny relevance and uniqueness in
different contexts. We need greater prophetic individuation.
Individuation means "the quality of being individual, distinct, unique,
or original".
The desert creates this individuation. Because the fervent heat melts away pretense,
in-desert prophets are able to find their truest prophetic voices underneath the
wanna-be facades. Those voices may have similarities to other prophets, but should
also have noticeable uniqueness and innovation. What Moses discovered in the desert
about his prophetic identity is quite different than what Elijah discovered. And
David. And John. These prophets all emerged from the desert with some similarities,
but also great individuality.
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The wilderness intensifies anointing
The wilderness increases our prophetic power. As crucial transformations happen,
the Spirit has more liberty to rest upon us in stronger measures. Check out the
subtle symbolism in Song of Songs 3:6: Who is this coming up from the desert like
a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and incense made from all the spices of the
merchant? When Jesus came up from His desert experience, He was encompassed by
the smoke of God's glory, perfumed with powerful anointing for ministry (Lk 4:1-19).
Psalm 92:10 says something similar: ...fine oils have been poured upon me. This
fresh oil of power came upon the psalmist because he battled his enemies and overcame
(v11), he grew spiritually very much (v12), and he made God his intimate dwellingplace
(v13).
We too increase in the power of the Spirit by being fully faithful to the desert
developments. We will face our enemies and we must overcome them. We will be challenged
to grow personally and we must swallow our pride and do so. Ultimately, we must
plant ourselves in God and His presence. We must let the desert's fervent heat melt
anything and everything in our life that keeps us from finding our all in all in
Him and only Him. Then we will see Him increase His anointing portions upon our
ministries.
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In the desert the highway is prepared and straightened for God to powerfully
show
Himself in our ministry.
Isaiah 40:3.
Junior
Great Commission Worship & Arts Center