The wilderness is not a punishment

Being lost in the wilderness, aware of what you lack, mapless, can feel like a punishment. I assure you, it is not. The wilderness is precisely where you need to be.

Old stories, Biblical stories, have long spoken of a truth about the wilderness we tend to forget: you have to go there to get anywhere significantly different or better than where you are now. More: to achieve true self knowledge, perspective, direction and reward: you need to spend some liminal time in the bushes.

Biblical wilderness is not just a marker for "unpleasant times": it is simultaneously a place of privation and encounter.

It removes the ordinary structures that sustain identity: food, security, familiarity, status, certainty, other people, possessions, predictable routines.

We are left alone with ourselves and if that feels terrifying then we must acknowledge what that terror signals: that we have been altogether too reliant on external structure and resource for our sense of security. That it is time for some deep self reflection.

The Bible, as a book about commitment, consistency, endurance and pursuit of good (which I hope we can agree upon, regardless of our religious beliefs) is unusually interested in wilderness.

Moses goes into the wilderness. Israel goes into the wilderness. Elijah goes into the wilderness. Jesus goes into the wilderness. They do not all go for the same reasons, and their wildernesses are not interchangeable, but the pattern is striking: the wilderness comes before a significant change.