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b'READ: DEUTERONOMY 8:2-18; PSALM 13; MATTHEW 11:28-30\\n\\n\\n\\nWhat are deserts? Many people think of places like the Sahara\\u2014rolling dunes of hot sand with no signs of life. Some consider parts of the Arctic to be a desert. It makes sense\\u2014rolling dunes of snow with no signs of life. In either case, deserts are big, empty, and hostile.\\n\\n\\n\\nDo you ever feel like you\\u2019re living in a desert? I do. Sometimes the season of life we\\u2019re living in feels extreme, difficult to bear, and void. We may think: "How could God possibly be working in my life right now? I\\u2019m doing nothing but surviving\\u2014barely. My life isn\\u2019t like the heroes of the Bible. My life is empty."\\n\\n\\n\\nHowever, nearly all the people in the Bible had what I call \\u201cdesert years.\\u201d One of the most obvious examples is the Israelites\\u2019 forty years of desert wanderings (Numbers 32:13). But there are also Moses\\u2019s years as a shepherd in the desert before God called him back to Egypt (Exodus 2:15\\u20133:10), David\\u2019s years of hiding in desert caves before God fulfilled His promise to make him king (1 Samuel 23:25), and Abraham and Sarah\\u2019s years of nomadic desert life before God gave them a child (Genesis 12\\u201320). And Jesus didn\\u2019t skip the desert experience when He came as a human to die for our sins and bring us new life through His resurrection. He spent forty days in a desert before He began His ministry (Matthew 4:1-11).\\n\\n\\n\\nFor some of these people, not much is written about their desert years. But that doesn\\u2019t mean God was absent or that these years were meaningless. Think of the Israelites wandering aimlessly in the desert. In that time, God showed His loving, fatherly faithfulness. Their shoes never wore out and God provided them with food and water (Exodus 16\\u201317; Deuteronomy 29:5). God showed that in the absence of all other things in life, He was present. How is God working in your desert years? I don\\u2019t know. But I know His life-giving presence is there. \\u2022 Abigail Scibiur\\n\\n\\n\\n\\u2022 Have you gone through a season of your life that felt like a desert? Do you feel like you\\u2019re going through desert years right now? Are there any Bible passages, memories of past experiences with God, or trusted Christians you can draw near to for comfort during this time?\\n\\n\\n\\n\\u2022 When we\\u2019re in our desert years, it doesn\\u2019t always feel like God is present. But if we know Jesus, He lives in us through the Holy Spirit. We can bring these feelings of loneliness and distance to God in prayer and ask Him to remind us of His nearness anytime.\\n\\n\\n\\nSatisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Psalm 90:14 (NIV)'