Find Hope in Your Desert: 4 Tips for Keeping Hope Alive

When we first moved to Hawaii, we followed some new friends on a hike to a far corner of the island. We had our three daughters along with us, the youngest just 18 months old, and we were completely unprepared. The hike was long and fully exposed to the sun. We didn’t have proper footwear for the rocky terrain. I carried our youngest much of the way, which killed my back and exhausted my legs. 

When we stopped to rest about halfway, I discovered that my one bottle of water had turned upside down and had been pouring out the bottom of my bag as I walked. There were just a few drops left. What should have been a fun excursion ended up being painful and frustrating. Living in the tropics, this is the closest I’ve come to a desert experience, and we came out with only bruised egos.

In the Bible the desert often symbolizes the spiritual wastelands of our lives, times when we feel abandoned, when life is not going our way, when we are depleted of the things that bring us joy. The Bible also holds practical illustrations of how terrible the desert can be, like when the Israelites wandered around one for 40 years. 

I have spent plenty of time in these kinds of deserts, when the pain or grief, loneliness or disappointment felt too heavy to manage.

These desert experiences are common to us all. They don’t mean we have erred or that God has forgotten us. But if they are unavoidable, what in the world are we supposed to do in the middle of the desert? How can we bloom in such harsh conditions?

Four practical tips for keeping hope alive in your desert

1.Become authentic about suffering

One of the healthiest things we can do is own our suffering. I was afraid of my pain for a long time. I could only talk about it once it had passed, because it felt shameful. I had bought into a lie that Christians shouldn’t ever feel overwhelmed by emotion. So I stayed silent and prolonged my suffering.

God does not condemn our pain. He tells us to expect that it will come. He gave us emotions and they are good and not shameful. 

Now, I don’t shout my pain from the rooftops. But I share it with close friends who will support e and pray for me. I voice my pain aloud in prayer or in a journal or the Dawn app. I honor my own experience enough to feel it. That actually frees me up to move through it and take a positive step forward.

2.Get spiritually hydrated

What is so awful about the desert? It is the extremes of heat and cold, the lack of shelter to protect from it, and a lack of natural resources to sustain life. But when one wanders about in the heat, dehydration is the biggest threat. With just a little water, a life can be saved. 

Our source of water is the Spirit of God come to earth to comfort and fill our souls (John 4:1-26, NIV). We can access it anywhere and at any time through prayer, through conversing with God himself. Even when we don’t sense or hear him, we can take comfort in his nearness. 

While relationships and events in our lives can fill us and bring us joy, they were never meant to be our primary source. Everything is fickle except God himself. By tethering ourselves to Him as our wellspring we will always have enough, even when walking through a difficult situation.

3.Rest through the extremes, don’t succumb to them

Like the desert heat and cold, sometimes our lives feel like a nauseating pendulum. When will things stop changing on us? When will we be able to rest? 

When crises come, the best thing to do is slow down. Slow our reactions, slow our words. Pause and pray and see how God wants us to respond. The enemy of our souls wants us to feel tossed about. But we don’t have to be shaken up and reactionary. 

We can rest. In fact, we will only be able to rest when we choose it. We can rest our minds in the truth that God won’t abandon us (Deut. 31:6). We can rest our bodies by not over-scheduling our days. We can rest our souls in companionship with others, in time with God, in long walks. When we don’t give our bodies and souls the rest we need during extreme times, we will get so depleted that we will make things harder on ourselves. 

When it feels like you can’t afford to rest, you probably are needing it more than ever.

4.Remember the Lord’s kindness and wait for his goodness to become evident

Psalm ​​106:13-15 (NIV) refers to the wandering Israelites when it says, “But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold. In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wilderness they put God to the test.”

Unfold is a perfect word for how God’s plans are worked out in our lives. They are hidden and then revealed in his perfect timing. When we stop trusting that his resources are available for us in the desert, that He is truly sufficient for our physical and emotional needs, we try to take things into our own hands. It gets messy. We separate ourselves from his love and provision. We don’t end up in a better place. 

Make this a personal mantra - the Lord is kind and faithful. He will never let me be shaken (Psalm 55:22, NIV). Finally, remember Him, the greatness and completeness of Him, and hold onto His hope that will never fail you.

Journal prompts

What is your personal desert? Voice your hurts and fears to the Lord.

What is one thing you can do daily to care for and nourish yourself spiritually during this time?

Where have you seen God show up for you in the past?

Scripture for meditation

“See, I am doing a new thing! 

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

and streams in the wasteland.”
-Isaiah 43:19

If you find this content helpful, check out the Dawn app with a daily spiritual practice and resources to support your mental wellbeing.