Are you in the midst of a wilderness season in your faith? Maybe you’ve been wandering through a season like this for months or even years; don’t give up hope. Israel wandered for forty years in a large wilderness, but the entire time, God was with them, and they lacked nothing.

“Then we turned back and set out toward the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea, as the Lord had directed me. For a long time, we made our way around the hill country of Seir. Then the Lord said to me, ‘You have made your way around this hill country long enough; now turn north’…The Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through his vast wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.” Deuteronomy 2:1-3,7

While we often look at wilderness seasons as a bad thing, Mark Schoolmeesters says that is not always the case.

“Sometimes we can want to resent the wilderness. God brings us through different wilderness seasons at different times in our life, it’s not a question of if, but when.”

Even Jesus walked through his own wilderness season.

“We see repeatedly through Scripture that people walk through these seasons and I think we can sometimes be tempted to feel like it’s wasted time, but the wilderness is not that at all. It’s actually an opportunity for refinement and a reminder for us to allow God to root out the things in us that can stand in the way. Sometimes we go in into the wilderness seasons because of what we’ve done or what we set into motion and other times it’s just the nature and cadence of life.”

How will you walk through your wilderness season?

“The question for us today is how we will choose to walk through it. If we’re going to choose to walk through it trusting and believing and knowing that wilderness can actually become almost a sanctuary for us and the miracle in the wilderness is really that we learn to trust God.”


Mark Schoolmeesters is a husband, father, songwriter, and worship leader, producer, and pastor. He serves as the lead worship pastor at Emmanuel Christian Center in Minneapolis, MN and also champions Emmanuel LIVE, a worship movement birthed out of their local church.

Key Scripture: Deuteronomy 2:1-3,7

Featured Songs: Emmanuel – Emmanuel Live; In the River – Emmanuel Live; Alleluia (Come Every Nation) – Emmanuel

Mark Schoolmeesters will be leading worship at the Northwestern Christian Writers Conference. Learn more about this exciting opportunity here

The Artist's Corner: Walking through the wilderness