Have you ever had a moment where things didn’t go the way you expected them to go? You had a plan, you were working on that plan, but then, it shifted. The job fell through, the money you planned to have got used up somehow, a relationship dried up. Maybe you prayed for something, and God didn’t do what you expected or hoped He would do.

All of us experience that.

For the last year, I expected God to do something. I was so convinced I knew exactly what God was doing, but I didn’t. So what seemed like a perfectly laid out plan for my life didn’t happen.

At first, I was frustrated. I wanted to stop praying. I was so mad at God. Didn’t he know the great plans I had for my life?

As I look back, though, what I saw as great plans were really just easy plans. If I got the job I applied for; my family wouldn’t have to move, we wouldn’t have to leave friends and start over, I would move into a new role at the church I was already on staff at and keep things moving into the next season. It was easy. I also know, now looking back, I wasn’t wired for that, and that wasn’t my next best step.

How do you make sure you don’t waste your desert? Or, as I recently heard Albert Tate say, “What if the season you are in isn’t the test, but the preparation for the test to come?” So how do you make sure you are ready?

This is incredibly important but easy to miss in the desert. But we want to make sure we are prepared for the future God has for us.

As I walked through my most recent desert, here are 3 questions I found helpful to ask:

How are you spending your time in the wilderness? In the desert, it is easy to be like the children of Israel and complain. This makes sense because the desert isn’t fun. It is harsh. It is a barren place with little water, lots of sun, no shade, and creatures that can kill you!

But it is important to ask, how am I spending my time in the desert? And, am I spending my time on the things God is spending his time on in me?

As Katie and I spent months walking around the desert of Tucson behind our neighborhood, we kept asking, “God, what are you doing? What are you doing in us? What are you preparing us for?” These questions shifted our perspective, which is incredibly important to not wasting your desert.

But how do you figure those things out? It is what you do with your time in the desert that determines what happens in the desert.

When Jesus was in the desert in Mark 1 & Matthew 4, he spent his time fasting and praying, so he was ready to battle the devil and do the work in the desert that He needed to do.

Are you moving closer to God or pulling away? Every desert in Scripture is an invitation from God to pull closer to him or pull away from Him. To listen more closely to His voice or to listen more to the voices of those around you. It is a moment to decide if you will dig into the soul work God is doing in you or pull away from that and go the shortcut and skip that hard work.

The shortcut seems easier. The nation of Israel got tired of waiting on Moses to bring a word from God, so they built a golden calf to worship.

The reality of the desert is that God will often seem incredibly distant and silent. You can go weeks, months, or even years without a clear sign from God, a clear word from Him. This is disorienting and disillusioning. In our most recent desert, God felt silent for over a year. It seemed like He was speaking clearly to lots of people around us but not to us. In fact, we almost missed Him because of how He spoke to us about Massachusetts; it wasn’t what we expected Him to do.

If the wilderness is your training camp, what is being toned and strengthened in you? This last question is critical.

The best way to not waste your desert season is to ask: God, what is being strengthened in me? What do you want me to learn about you? About myself.

There are things about God and ourselves that we can only learn in the deserts of life.

Don’t mistake this question, though; this isn’t necessarily why God has you where you are, but it is the path that God wants you on to know what He wants you to know.

As Katie and I walked through our desert in Tucson, God showed us things in our hearts that we ended to know. He showed us what our desires for life, family, and ministry really were and that they wouldn’t be found where we were. He showed me what I really valued in life and what it would take to get to those places. We needed the time of the desert for those things to crystallize in our hearts and minds.

I think something else happens; our faith is strengthened as we dig into God’s word and presence in the desert. As we fight to hear God’s voice, as we strain to hear Him, we learn how to hear Him, and that is such a gift. It is not always easy and obvious, but His voice is always there.