Lauren Chandler is well acquainted with suffering. When her husband, Pastor Matt Chandler of The Village Church, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in 2009, she sought comfort in God and His Word. Psalm 107 was the passage that brought her strength in the journey. She shares what she learned in her book Steadfast Love.

The psalm outlines four different journeys God walks through with His people; one of which is the desert season. In a spiritual desert we feel barren and lonely, even in the midst of a crowd.

“We feel like no one can understand… no one can really feel what we’re feeling. You could be totally surrounded and feel lonely.”

Lauren quickly identified with David. David found himself in a lot of lonely seasons and seasons of longing.

“Maybe you have experienced an intimacy with God, and now it’s gone. And all you have is just kind of the bitter aftertaste, because you’ve known what it’s like to taste the sweet fellowship, and now you can’t sense it at all.”

Lauren calls them “howling songs.” The Bible is full of them, and it can be a comfort to realize the desert is a very common place for believers.

“Have You forsaken me?
How long, O Lord, will You hide Your face?
Will You forget me forever?” Psalm 13:1

The desert may feel lonely, but you are not alone.

“You aren’t the first person that’s ever felt that before. You’re not alone, although you feel really alone. You can continue to cry out to God just as David did.”

Preach to yourself, and remind yourself. He’s still there, He’s still good. His rescue will come.

Be willing to see that maybe the Lord wants to uproot some things in your heart in that desert. You know God took His people out of Egypt through the wilderness.

“Though He’d taken them out of Egypt, Egypt had not been taken out of them.” God used the desert to uproot their idols and show them that only He was enough.

Ask yourself, are there some allegiances or idols that the Lord wants to remove by using the desert season I’m experiencing?

Key Scriptures: Psalm 107

Featured Songs: Touch the Sky by Hillsong; Here I Am by Jeremy Camp; My Anchor by Christy Nockles

Highlight : Walking through the desert

God as our anchor