You may be wondering, what does she mean by God’s school? God’s school, simply put is the WILDERNESS.
I call it the School of hard knocks because it is the most difficult and driest place anyone can be. The Wilderness is a dry and scary place filled with deadly demons and animals, threatening health issues, such as mental disorder, body weakness, etc; a place where you feel lost and lonely, hungry, thirsty, hopeless, unproductive, above all, death may result if not careful; it’s a place where you’ll walk through fire, go through the deepest sea with the tides up against you and a place where you pass through the toughest situations. Why then, would God choose anyone to be in this place?
Revelation 12:1-6; the key verse here is (v 6); And the woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place to care for her for 1,260 days.
Who fled into the wilderness and why? Reading from verse 1, the woman described there by John was a woman of destiny, a woman adorned with beauty and grace. However, she was pregnant with destiny, she was pregnant with God’s purpose for her life, she was carrying a child in her womb (destiny) that would rule the nations, a child that would wow great men and mighty warriors, a child that would bring God glory. But then, there was another shocking revelation, the dragon, that is the enemy, (knowing that the woman wasn’t spiritually mature and too weak to train the child the way he ought to be trained), waited to devour the child as soon as she bore him. But God……..but God…….BUT GOD had positioned his angels to bring Him the child while the woman went away on training in His school of hard knocks – wilderness.
God’s plans are to bring us the expected end (Jeremiah 29:11), but he has to break you, remold you, fill you to be able to use you for His purpose and one of the ways He does that is take you through school, where everyone- friends and relatives forsake you, where things fall apart, where you’ll face disappointments from most trusted people, that you have only God to turn to. God will allow you go through series of tests, demons to torment you, push you, toss you around and even threaten you but He’ll be there to uphold you.
In the wilderness, there are times that you feel so lost and alone, there are times that you’ll feel helpless – you look to the left, to the right and all around you, you’ll find no one to help you. That’s the plan! God needs your attention and wants you to turn and trust Him completely. That’s when you feed on His Word, you listen and obey each command (Psalm 119:71), you make Him your priority and you develop an intimate relationship with Him. This school is where you’ll learn all that he intends for you to learn for a specific period of time. All these and more you’ll face but He said He’ll be with you (Isaiah 43:2), just like he sent the woman adorned with glory in Revelations 12:1 into the wilderness and it is recorded that, there, God would CARE for her for a specific period of time (1260 days).
Only specific people are chosen to pass through this school; many have been called by God but only a few have been chosen; the chosen few pass through this school. Like the woman in Revelation 12:1-6, people with great destinies, people with a high calling, people with special assignments, peculiar people, and those whom God has marked for distinction (Romans 9: 13-15), are the ones God sends to this school (wilderness) in order to prepare, mature and bring out the best in them. For example, Jesus Christ went through the wilderness before God allowed him carry out his assignment on earth (Luke 4:1-13), John the Baptist carried out his assignment from the wilderness where he only fed on locusts and honey (Matthew 3), the Israelites had to go through the wilderness to their promised land for God to mature and prepare them to possess and retain their inheritance, (Exodus 13:17-18, Deuteronomy 8:2), etc. God may have appointed some other Prophets, Priests, Kings and other great men that made history in the bible, not all of them went through the wilderness, just a chosen few went through it because they had peculiar assignments.
Sincerely speaking, the toughest school anyone born great will ever have to pass through is the Wilderness because it is designed like the furnace; the plan is to bring out the gold (treasure) in you. What would I do while in the Wilderness and waiting for the appointed time to come out? Take the story of Joseph (Genesis 39, 40 & 41), while He was in Potiphar’s house, waiting to ascend the throne, he maintained his INTERGRITY, even if sleeping with Potiphar’s wife would lead him quicker to his throne of rulership in Potiphar’s house. In the wilderness, situations will arise that you’ll feel a deep urge to compromise your walk with God, like Joseph maintain your integrity (Psalm 25 vs. 21), keep watch and pray, yield yourself to God and let Him work in you, soak yourself in His Word (Matthew 4:4). There had been times when my walk with God overwhelmed me and I never really found the words or be able to describe how I felt to anyone, then, I turned to his Word and found the exact Words to calm my “indescribable” feelings – His Word sure does a good job at bringing out your innermost thoughts and fixing them. God might be silent for so long just to know what you’ll do, keep trusting Him (Hebrew 3:19; Romans 4:18-20*).
You can tell you’re in the wilderness when your life becomes pathetic, when you face disappointments from friends, loved ones and relatives, etc; They will make up stories that aren’t true just to attack your faith, they will plot your downfall, they will put you out for the world to ridicule you, yes, they will call you names and give you up for destruction; you’re in the wilderness when you’re faced with oppositions, delays, sickness, dryness, unfruitfulness, trials, failures, loss of job, children, family, house, finance, etc, (the life of Job is a typical example); Barrenness is one of the ways God draws the attention of women that carry great destinies that they may cooperate with Him and birth destiny at the appointed time (1 Samuel 1:5-7, 10 & 11, 21-28).
The reason most people stay longer than God planned for them to be in the wilderness is because they have refused to believe and trust in God, they find it difficult to allow Him lead while they follow, they have refused to obey His commands, they have not stopped grumbling and looking back at where they used to be (numbers 14:1-4); some have compromised their walk with God because of impatience, some have taken shortcuts - serving foreign gods and seeking help from the wrong places. These and many more will keep you wandering in your wilderness until you come to terms with what God wants you to do.
One sure thing about God is that whether He speaks or is silent in the midst of the storm, he has worked out a perfect plan to push you into His plan and purpose for your life, so be still and know that the end will bring you joy (Psalm 46:10, Psalm 131: 1-3). There were times I’d felt like He was not there, there were times I’d felt like transporting myself to heaven so I can ask Him all the questions in my heart, times when I was overwhelmed by situations beyond my control, He speaks to me only when I’m quiet within my soul. Worrying will not take you an inch away from your situation, panicking like I learnt, will land you more problems than you can handle. Like my spiritual father will say to me, “JUST LET GOD HAVE HIS WAY, YOU MAY NOT UNDERSTAND IT ALL”…….Yes, you’ll never know what He’s up to until the perfect picture is revealed. Let Him have His way………….
Dear Lord, forgive me for the times that I’ve struggled to have my way, for the times I chose to do things my way instead of listening to your voice. Holy Spirit help me to align my will with God’s that I may become who He wants me to be.
