Content taken from Your Wilderness Is Not a Waste by Dustin Crowe, ©2025. Used by permission of Moody Publishers. One reason God allows us to get to a place of feeling our reliance or need is because it’s then we look to Him. Like our eyes adjust to a light being turned on in the darkness, our felt dependence in the wilderness stings at first but our spiritual eyes then become open to what God is doing around us. When we know we need help, that’s where we must trust in God more fully, which is ultimately how our faith grows.Deuteronomy 8 is one of my favorite wilderness chapters. Moses reflects on all God has done and the lessons learned in their years of wandering. “And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3). Buy on Amazon God tells Israel that He let them get hungry so He could come through on His promise to take care of them. He lets their faith be tested, or lets His faithfulness be tested, so that it could also be proven.Strengthen Your Faith as it’s StretchedThe things we want to avoid are often the things that cause us to grow. We want God to excuse us from trials, but they mature us as people, teach us endurance, and grow our faith. Because these are what’s best for us, though not easiest, God allows them in our lives. They are blessings in disguise that God knows we need but we would never choose.We don’t like feeling dependent, lacking control, experiencing weakness, or facing our insufficiencies. We want to be in control. We want to meet everyone’s expectations, know all the answers, and be able to solve our problems. If we could do all these things, we would never feel our need for God and we would trust in self. The Christian life is about living by faith in God, not trusting in self. To live by faith we must be stretched until we need faith.We must walk through circumstances and challenges where we can’t foresee the answer or face obstacles we can’t overcome on our own. God uses troubles and trials to wean us off our trust in anything other than Him. Our faith is fed through feeling hunger, not by avoiding it.Weakness, dependence, and limits open doors to living by faith in God and seeing His faithfulness. If He’s letting a wilderness test your faith, He also wants to prove why He’s the only one worthy of your faith. He lets your faith be stretched, not so it breaks, but so it gets stronger.Embrace Your Daily Dependence on GodIn Exodus 16, Israel wakes up with new hungers, but they also awake to God’s fresh provision. God knows their needs and has the answer ready before the day even starts. But it does require faith from them. Instead of anxiously attempting to store more manna than they need, they collect enough for that day. Rather than planting crops or stockpiling resources, they must enter into daily dependence.There’s a sports cliché athletes use that feels like a line they’re supposed to parrot. In many interviews, a reporter will ask someone about an upcoming opponent, and the player will say, “We’re not thinking about them. We just need to take it one game at a time and play the next team up.” That idea was probably pounded into them by the coaches because it’s an important principle. If the Cincinnati Reds play the Chicago Cubs today, they need all their attention on the Cubs. It doesn’t help to think about playing the Pittsburgh Pirates next week. Players can’t affect the game in advance, but they can affect today’s game.Jesus teaches a similar idea in the Lord’s Prayer when He says to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt. 6:11). Why does Jesus teach us to pray this way, asking God to provide this day our daily bread? Wouldn’t it be better to ask God for a freezer full of bread? That’s how we want God to work. We want God to provide well in advance or to supply us a whole week’s worth of bread. We’d prefer God tell us the whole path and not just the next step or transform us all at once instead of taking little strides in maturity.God knows what’s best for us is to live by daily bread. The good news is if you experience daily dependence and desperation, that doesn’t mean you’re failing as a Christian or you’re not strong enough. It could mean you’re experiencing the normal Christian life, which is about daily dependence on God and His grace.Only a few verses after Jesus taught us to ask for daily bread, He talked about anxiety or worry. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:34). Because every day will have its own share of troubles and trials, it doesn’t solve anything to try to fix or worry about tomorrow’s problems. But we can live faithfully and dependently by God’s help today, resting in His grace right now.The call to live on God’s daily grace shrinks our worries, stresses, and demands into more manageable chunks. Sometimes our worries, fears, and burdens overwhelm us because we imagine having to endure them forever. Or we create the worst-case scenario in our head and want grace for that, but all we need is help or grace for what we’re walking through right now. God doesn’t promise wisdom, strength, or hope for tomorrow’s troubles or for potential trials. But whatever it is you’re walking through today, in this season, or in this wilderness journey, He offers the manna you need through His generous provision and powerful grace. God gives enough bread for today’s burdens, not future ones. Entrust yourself, day by day, to His watchful care.

A few years back, a pastor was speaking on the nature and necessity of discipleship. To emphasize his point, he shared a personal childhood story about a board game he used to play and how it altered his perception of the expectations of true discipleship.When I was a kid in the mid-50s, Parker Brothers came out with a game for church families like ours. It was called “Going to Jerusalem.” Your playing piece wasn’t a top hat or Scottie dog, like in the “worldly” game of Monopoly. In “Going to Jerusalem,” you got to be a real disciple. You were represented by a little plastic man with a robe, a beard, some sandals, and a staff. In order to move across the board, you looked up answers to questions in the little black New Testament provided with the game. I remember that you always started in Bethlehem, and you made stops at the Mount of Olives, Bethsaida, Capernaum, the stormy sea, Nazareth, and Bethany. If you rolled the dice well, you went all the way to a triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But you never got to the Crucifixion or Resurrection. There were no demons or angry Pharisees. You only made your way through the nice stories. It was a safe adventure, perfectly suited for a Christian family on a Sunday afternoon walk with Jesus. It never occurred to me, while leaning over the card table jiggling the dice in my hand, that traveling with Jesus wasn’t meant for plastic disciples who looked up verses in a little black Bible. If you’re going to walk with Jesus as his disciple in this world, you may need to change your expectations.His story is instructive. Discipleship is no safe adventure. In fact, the discipleship road can be quite perilous. Even though we encounter great and numerous blessings throughout the journey, it often also includes roadblocks, detours, bumps, and bruises. That pastor’s story is also illustrative of a deep-seated issue and inconvenient truth that should be named and not be ignored: There is a form of discipleship out there that is plastic, fragile, and soft. It is soft discipleship that demands nothing and costs nothing. And if that is the case, then it is also worth nothing. Denying SelfThe order of the day seems to be a popular discipleship that cheerfully denies the concept that following Jesus comes with any significant demands. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Yet the truth of God’s word belies this. The call to follow Christ is a costly one, and we need that reminder especially now because following people is all too tempting and easy. All we have to do is click, and we can virtually follow hundreds, even thousands of people. But Jesus demands that we follow him distinctively. And he is quite clear about that, “If anyone would come after me.” Not “me and someone else,” but “me.” Jesus only. Jesus uniquely. Jesus singularly. He is saying that we must follow him in the way he prescribes. This means we don’t get to set the terms for our relationship with Christ, nor do we set the rules for engagement. He does. And the first rule set down is self-denial. He is not talking about denying ourselves of things. As a matter of fact, he is not even hinting at something. It’s far more radical, Jesus is saying, “deny yourself.” This is a denial of your attempts to be self-governing and self-sufficient. Jesus is calling us into a life of complete dependence on him. By doing so, he is also reversing one of the destructive effects of the fall. The fall was the ultimate sinful act of self-determination. Jesus is calling us to surrender, to deny self, and to follow him because when we do, we are actually living in the way in which we were created. You and I were made for fellowship with God, and this denial is the only way it is going to happen—when the self fades into the background and we take up our cross. Notice that Jesus is not being cryptic or surreptitious; he is being explicit and upfront. If we are going to follow him, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross.There was nothing attractive about the cross. The cross was not even a neutral reality or image. Rather, such a command to take up one’s cross would have been repulsive to a Jew. The cross didn’t have any positive associations whatsoever. It was a sign of sin and curse, death and shame. Jesus was not promoting that death on a cross should be a disciple’s goal. Instead, Jesus reinforces the point of denying oneself. Self-denial should feel like death to us. And often it does. In Jesus’ commanding self-denial, he is asking us to live a life of repentance. In asking us to take up our cross, He is asking for an all-in, all-embracing commitment. Following Jesus demands both repentance and commitment. But the decision is ours. We know this because Jesus’ invitation to a life of discipleship came in the form of a conditional statement, “If anyone would come after me.” Jealous and ZealousJesus is calling us to fellowship in our followship. The call is grounded in the jealousy of God. But God’s jealousy is not like ours, which so often is a show of competitive frustration, spite, envy, and pride. His jealousy is a zeal to protect and preserve, not only his glory, but also the covenantal relationship that exists between him and his people of love and fidelity. So, when Jesus asks us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him, he is really asking us to love him above all else (Mark 12:30), to follow him wherever he goes (Rev. 14:4), and to give him our absolute and undivided loyalty (Ex. 20:3). Therefore, the right response to his jealousy over us is our zeal for him. It is our deep, fervent, faithful zeal that would inspire us to gladly and willingly desire to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him. In a phrase, the result is true discipleship. Like zeal, discipleship should be filled with a burning passion for God and his will; a desire to promote his glory in all things; a single-minded devotion; an enthusiasm for virtue and holiness. What sort of discipleship will yours be? That depends on you, as the disciple. And it must be born of an apprenticeship of increasing zeal for Christ.  Happy are the simple followers of Jesus Christ who have been overcome by his mercy and sing with the humblest of hearts the praises of the all-sufficient grace of Christ. Happy are they who know that grace and can live in the world without being a part of it. Those who, by following Jesus Christ, are so assured of their heavenly citizenship that they are truly free to live their lives in this world. Happy are they who understand that discipleship means life which springs from grace, and that grace informs their discipleship. Happy are they who have become Christians in this sense of the word. For them, the word of grace has proved a fount of mercy. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, pp. 55-56)The life of discipleship is devoted to self-denial and daily cross-bearing. No better life exists. Discipleship is difficult and demanding. Whatever losses we perceive to be losing on the discipleship road will always pale in comparison to what we will gain in Christ.

Have you ever met a new family, found that you became quick friends, and then, within a few short years, had to say goodbye as they moved away to pursue a dream or a job opportunity? Many of us have. Indeed, one of the challenges with making friends today is that people don’t stay in one place for long. Unlike most before us, we (at least in the West) can relocate thousands of miles with relative ease. In our individualistic, career-oriented culture, constant motion is the norm. And while I’m convinced the ease of relocation is a gift, something worth celebrating about the modern age, I’m also concerned that it’s hurting our ability to foster deep relationships, particularly in the context of a local church. For years, voices within the Church have warned us of a crisis in discipleship. While lots of professing Christians are made through the ministries of our churches, there appear to be fewer people with Jesus-surrendered staying power. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). That’s a radical call—a counter-intuitive way to live. Such words push against the hustle, grind, and personal fulfillment narrative that many people spend their days pursuing. While serving as the Adult Discipleship Pastor at my local church, several questions have arisen in my mind about this discipleship crisis. Is there a correlation between constant moving and the current landscape of following Jesus? Can men and women properly follow him if not deeply rooted in a local church? Does the ability to stay connected digitally make embodied community irrelevant? While I don’t have all the answers, I do have some thoughts that I believe can help the Church move in a positive direction. A Better WayWe grow close to others as we spend time with them—asking good questions, experiencing highs and lows, laughing, eating, and making memories together. I experienced this in a meaningful way over the summer when our family took a 4,500-mile road trip to the western United States. Car Bingo, overnight stays in unfamiliar towns, exploring beautiful countryside, and eating at unique pizza restaurants had a wonderful effect on my relationship with my wife and daughters. I could feel the benefits in our conversations and interactions for weeks following the trip. As it turns out, being physically present is vital to deepening relationships as it helps satisfy our longing for connection. Likewise, those in discipleship ministry often say that one main way to grow closer to Jesus and become like him is by deeply embedding ourselves into the life of a local church, not just attending a worship gathering, reading the Bible in isolation, or streaming a popular pastor’s content. Instead, we should live as part of the family of God throughout the week by engaging in activities like small groups, Bible studies, service projects, or care visits.Some people argue that because the Apostle Paul lived a transient life, rootedness in a local church is merely a matter of preference. If Paul was on the move, that provides precedent for us to do the same, right? And what about Jesus? He was always on the go. While both men were certainly travel experts, the singular nature of Christ’s messianic role and Paul’s status as an Apostle should not be viewed as normative for Christians today. In our modern age of moving from place to place, the focus is almost always on self-advancement or upward mobility. We swim in the waters of individualism. Disciples of Jesus deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him, wherever he goes and however he leads. In a very palpable sense, following Jesus means unfollowing ourselves. Life With OthersImmersing ourselves in the spiritual rhythms and life of a local church is a transformative act. In the context of a local church, we can hone our spiritual gifts like nowhere else. God has given gifts to his people for the common good of the church (1 Cor. 12:7). If we’re isolated or only have shallow relationships, our gifts won’t blossom or bless others. Why? Because trusted friendships in the church are the most natural place for the various gifts of the Spirit to be practiced. In the safety of these relationships, we know that if we say or do something wrong, we’re still loved and valued. The relationship isn’t shattered.Likewise, when connected to a local church for the long haul, destructive sin patterns are brought to light in a way that produces healing and the power to overcome. Just about every secret sin we hold, the ones we hope no one discovers, can be conquered through the light of God’s love and the Spirit working through the prayers and encouragement of trusted friends. It doesn’t take a large army. Two or three people who love us enough to speak up, understand their own need for grace, and humbly tremble at God’s word (Isa. 66:2) have great healing power.In the context of a local church, we can hear the word and do the word (James 1:22). Knowing a lot about the Bible does not make a true disciple. The Bible says, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1). Additionally, if we do amazing things for God but don’t have love, we’re only making noise (1 Cor. 13:1). If we preach God’s Word with clarity and power but don’t have love, we’re nothing (1 Cor. 13:2).Many more wonderful realities of belonging to a local church could be cited—realities that simply don’t exist in our transient, hustle-oriented world. But the truth is that if we want to follow Jesus and have a life that reflects his character and heart, the surest way to do so is to deeply root our lives in a gospel-centered local church. There’s no other way. Therefore, wherever you find yourself in the world, let God work in and through you there. Find a church, put down roots, and be transformed.