WHEN THE GAP BECOMES A WILDERNESS (1)

Similarly, you may undergo a period of preparation before you launch your dream. Your gap period will require preparation in three main areas: Preparation of Character, Preparation of Competence and Preparation of Circumstances. Sometimes the gap period may linger until it eventually becomes a wilderness experience. The journey to the promised land was supposed to take a few days, but the Israelites spent forty years in the wilderness. The wilderness is a place where water is scarce, where a traveller walks alone devoid of protection and where wild animals live. Such a traveller is bound to experience fear, doubt, and loneliness. The bible often depicts the experience of God’s blessings or presence with the ‘imagery of water’: streams and rivers “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly… He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water…” (Ps 1: 1-3).  A wilderness experience is therefore a season where you experience bareness, distress, doubt, and alienation from God. In a spiritual wilderness, God feels far away, distant, absent, and unresponsive (D. W. Ekstrand). You hear nothing, see nothing, and know nothing. At such times, you feel your dream slipping away and fear it may never happen. What do you do if you find yourself in such a place?