"Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her" (Hosea 2:14).

If you have an important message to convey to someone, what is the best means of getting the message through? Have you ever tried to talk with someone who was so busy you could not get them to hear you? Distractions prevent us from giving our undivided attention to the messenger. So too, God has His way of taking us aside to get our undivided attention. For Paul, it was Arabia for three years, for Moses, it was forty years in the desert, for Joseph, it was thirteen years in Egypt, for David, it was many years of fleeing from King Saul.

God knows the stubborn human heart. He knows that if He is to accomplish His deepest work, He must take us into the desert in order to give us the privilege to be used in His kingdom. It is the desert where we are changed. He removes those things that hinder. He forces us to draw deep upon His grace. The desert is only a season in our life. When He has accomplished what He wants in our lives in the desert, He will bring us out. He has given you and I a mission to fulfill that can only be fulfilled after we have spent adequate time in preparation in the desert. Fear not the desert. For it is there you will hear the voice of God like never before. It is here you become His bridegroom. It is here you will have the idols of your life removed. It is here you begin to experience the reality of a living God like never before. Someone once said, "God uses enlarged trials to produce enlarged saints so He can put them in enlarged places!"

"He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me" (2 Samuel 22:20).