The Wilderness | Simply Jesus Pt. 6

Most of us don’t think of ourselves as people who struggle with control. We think of ourselves as responsible. We provide for our families, we protect ourselves from getting hurt, and we work hard to build something meaningful. None of that is wrong. But there’s a moment that shows up in almost every life, usually when money gets tight, a door stays closed, or the waiting drags on longer than we planned. Suddenly we’re not just working toward something. We’re forcing it.

In this message, we look at an old story about a man who spent forty days alone in the desert, hungry and worn down, and was offered three very reasonable-sounding shortcuts. Take care of yourself right now. Make sure you’re safe, and demand proof that someone has your back. Skip the long road and get where you’re going faster. None of the offers looked evil. That’s what made them so hard to turn down. Each one asked the same quiet question: can you actually trust that you’ll be taken care of?

That’s the heart of this conversation. The most dangerous pressures in our lives often don’t look like bad choices. They look like good desires pursued the wrong way. Provision turns into control. Protection turns into demanding guarantees. Ambition turns into compromise. And underneath all of it is the same thing, a quiet decision to stop trusting and start grabbing.

What the story offers isn’t a lecture on trying harder. It’s a different way to hold the things we can’t control. Being in a hard season doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong, and needing something doesn’t mean you have to take it into your own hands. There’s another option: to let go, even while you’re still in the middle of the wilderness.