'Be-wildered': A Journey Through the Wilderness

When I was diagnosed with cancer for a second time in March this year, I made the conscious choice to treat whatever lay ahead as a journey of discovery; a pilgrimage of sorts as a sought to understand where God was in this time of trial.

However as time has progressed, I have come to realise that the analogy of a pilgrimage is not necessarily a helpful one. When you embark on a pilgrimage you do so with an end destination in mind, and in general you follow well-trodden paths, established over hundreds of years. As a pilgrim you are alert and open to what God is showing you en route and you may at times be delayed by meaningful encounters with others, but armed with maps you are travelling with a sense of direction. By contrast, the journey that I now find myself upon seems to have more in common with the wilderness experiences of the Israelites and early Desert Fathers.

The problem is that I am struggling to find a roadmap for my journey. At the outset I decided to establish the kind of ‘rule of life’ so beloved by the Celtic Christians; a pattern of prayer for each day which provides a ‘trellis’ or framework for all other experiences. I decided that I would begin each day listening to Nicky Gumbel’s Bible in One Year followed by prayer. After lunch I would meditate on healing scriptures and I would end my day with a Celtic Compline.

That was the plan – then I started chemotherapy and discovered that on some days I could hardly concentrate to read and on my really bad days I simply lay in bed drifting. Life had become very unpredictable and my routine was also interrupted by frequent visits to A&E and hospital stays. Being a bit of a control freak, I still tried to cling to my prayerful plan but have had to face the fact that, by definition, there are no roadmaps for the wilderness.

The wilderness is not a comfortable place to be. When we think about wilderness retreats we tend to think of taking time out somewhere beautiful and restful – but this was not the reality that the Israelites (or Jesus) faced. They found that the wilderness a very hard place to be - physically and mentally.

My time spent travelling through the Australian outback brought home to me that, barren and dry, the wilderness is a dangerous place that constantly threatens to sap life. In fact despite their miraculous escape, the Israelites often wished that they were back in Egypt, even if this meant that they would once again be enslaved. In the same way, I have often found myself wishing that I could turn back the clock to before I received that fateful call from the breast care unit. I pine after the days just before this latest cancer diagnoses, when I was appeared to be fit, healthy and very active – I was out on the water most days stand up paddle boarding with my husband (a shared passion).

Yet it was in the harsh wilderness of the Sinai Desert, that the Israelites learnt valuable lessons from God that enabled them to eventually enter the promised land. And it was in this inhospitable land that God gave the Israelites the ten commandments, the rules for living under His Lordship – which have shaped human concepts of social justice for thousands of years.

Driven into the wilderness

The Israelites didn’t choose to enter the wilderness, any more than I chose to get cancer once again. The reality is that you do not go into the true wilderness by choice.

The Israelites were propelled into the wilderness by God as they fled the Egyptians, and were condemned to stay there for forty years by their disobedience; forced to stay in the wilderness until they had learnt God’s lessons.

Likewise Jesus did not chose to go into the wilderness. We are told that in Mark 1:12 that immediately after his Baptism and his anointing by the Holy Spirt which was accompanied by his father’s affirmation ‘This is my son with whom I am well-pleased . . . . At once the spirit drove him into the wilderness.’ Jesus did not chose to go into the wilderness, the Spirit drove him there (the Greek ekballei used her for ‘drove’ , and means a compelling, aggressive pressure).

However, Jesus was not driven into the wilderness by God because he was displeased with him. It was not a punishment but rather a rite of passage. It was necessary for Jesus to spend this time in the wilderness, fasting and facing temptation in order to prepare him for his ministry. Likewise John the Baptist prepared the way for the coming of Jesus by living in the desert, and after this conversion Paul the Apostle spent three years in the desert of Arabia before embarking on the great evangelistic journeys that would change the world.

I must admit that it feels as if I too have been driven in the wilderness against my will. I did not choose to be here and frankly feel rather ‘bewildered’ by what God is doing in my life right now.

But I also realise that I need to accept this journey for what it is; to allow myself to be led by the Holy Spirit and to be open to all that God wants to teach me on the way.

Kate Nicholas is a preacher, Christian author and broadcaster. Her best-selling memoir Sea Changed (shortlisted as Christian Biography of the Year 2017) is an account of her unconventional journey of faith and previous healing from advanced cancer.

Kate has gone on to share her message of hope through her TV series on premiere Christian TV channel TBN Living a Transformed Life , speaking events, online courses and bible studies including Sea Changed: A Companion Guide for individuals and groups which helps people to see how God uses all the circumstances of their lives to transform them.

Her latest book, Soul’s Scribe: Connecting Your Story With God’s Narrative , draws on scripture, philosophy, psychology and over 20 years’ of reflection as a Christian communicator to take you on a journey through the various chapters of your soul story, providing you with the tools to share that story in a way that will inspire and encourage others.

Her books are widely available at Christian bookstores and online sites including eden.co.uk, Aslan Christian Books, Waterstones and Amazon worldwide.

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