Lost in the Woods: Finding Purpose in the Wildest Seasons of Life

I still remember the feeling of my heart racing as my hopes for this next season fell to shambles. I had no job lined up, no place to live, and no plans other than my online Seminary courses. My belongings were in a storage unit from the summer, and my cats were being housed in a bedroom at my parents’ house. I was living on my sister’s couch out of a suitcase. For many people, this lack of responsibilities and simplicity of life may feel like a dream, but for me, I felt numb and unsure of where to go.

Where was I going to live? How would I afford to even live there?

Why does this feel like I’m lost in the woods?

Threads of An Old Life

Whenever I watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy I always find myself relating to Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry as they return to the Shire after being away. The part at the end of Return of the King where they are in The Green Dragon always moves me.

While life is carrying along around them, they find themselves feeling out of place. They are holding onto this memory that only they will understand together. They then look around the room and then at each other. You can just feel the moment where they are thinking we just experienced a life-changing event, and no one else knows or cares. How do we go on from this? A few moments later we see Frodo at Bag End vocalizing these thoughts: “how do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back?”

The reason these final moments in the trilogy touch me so deeply is because this was how I felt as I walked into the deepest wilderness season of my life. The hobbits had just experienced a difficult adventure and now had to learn how to walk forward from it. I had just experienced a deeply transformative season of my life, yet I was alone in my experience as I returned home. I didn’t have support in the way that the hobbits did as they acclimated back to normal life. Old routines wouldn’t work for this new season. Like Frodo said, I didn’t know how pick up the threads of an old life and move forward with them. 

The Wilderness of Life

As we walk in these wilderness seasons of life, we oftentimes wonder why God is asking us to walk through such harsh conditions. Your wilderness season may be one filled with grief, or it may be filled with doubt. It may be a season where you are walking blindly, unsure of where you are going. You may be between jobs or experiencing infertility. 

Regardless of the defining characteristics of your particular season of wilderness, I believe that God is using this season for a purpose. 

Even in the vast wilderness of life, God’s provision remains.

When the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years, God still provided manna for them to eat.

When various people in the Gospels struggled with blindness, leprosy, and sickness, God provided healing through Jesus and his miracles.

And when humanity struggled with sin and unfaithfulness, God provided a Savior.

God calls us into seasons that are challenging, lonely, and downright wild so that he may be glorified through them. It’s also through wilderness that God beckons us to surrender to him. It’s in these seasons that we learn to trust in his plans and provision. 

But how can we know which way to go in seasons of wilderness? How do we avoid falling into the traps of the enemy during seasons where we feel lost in the woods?

Dangers in the Unknown

Luke 4 tells the story of Jesus fasting and praying in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. This alone proves his godhood because mortals alone could never survive that long without food or water. But it’s here in the midst of this wilderness that Satan enters and tries to tempt Jesus into forgoing his faithfulness to God. Even amongst temptation, Jesus stood firm and relied on the revealed word of God to sustain him. I believe that this example shows that even us, as finite human beings, can keep our integrity when we face trials in the wilderness.

As we walk in the wildest seasons, we are often tempted to find certainty and comfort in the things of this world instead of fully relying on God and his Word. I’ve found that three things are dangers toward our faith journey as we venture in the unknown: Our emotions try to lead the way, we latch onto anything that gives us comfort, and we try to rush God’s plans for us.

Truth Over Emotions

During my own vast wilderness, my emotions were all over the place. One day I felt confident and surrendered to God’s plans for me, even if I didn’t know what they were. But the next day, I felt alone and uncertain. My emotions would run wild, and the enemy would speak lies over me like you are alone in this and God has abandoned you. 

Our emotions are often trying to alert us to something that is a deeper issue, but they do not speak the whole truth. For me, my emotions made me more aware of my need for God, my struggle with anxiety during the unknown, and my desire to be wanted and accepted. While our emotions can be healthy, they also can lead us down the wrong path if we follow them instead of following God. 

Instead of allowing our emotions to lead the way, we need to remember that although they have a voice, God’s voice should be louder in our lives. I know that this isn’t easy to do. Our emotions are such a raw part of us, and God created us to be people of emotion. However, we have to remember what is true: that Jesus died for us, that we are loved by the Creator of this world, and that we serve a God that fulfills his promises.

Finding Comfort in God

When we allow our emotions to lead us, we often try to find ways to satisfy them. For me, I tend to latch onto anything that gives me a sense of comfort. During my wilderness season, one of those things I latched onto was relationships. For much of my youth, I used relationships as a means to find comfort when I felt I was lacking or wanted reassurance. I see now how unhealthy my view was toward relationships, which is why so many of them were fleeting and never lasted long.

Wandering in the woods, we find that we need something or someone to help us feel at home. What is that for you? Do you tend to latch onto other people? Or do you use food such as sweets or coffee to help you find comfort?

Instead of latching onto things of this world when we feel lost and uncertain, let’s latch tightly onto God. Desires of this world will not satisfy, but God will always be enough to satisfy us. 

Trusting God’s Plans

When our emotions are running wild and we are not able to find comfort within this world, we tend to try to rush our walk through the wilderness. We find ourselves running blindly and trying to make the world turn on our own. But who could actually force God’s plans to come to fruition by racing through life and trying to take the reins on their own?

This may be hard to hear if you are in the midst of a wilderness season, but we have to simply trust the process. God is still working and making a way, even today when we feel caught in a rainstorm or lost in the forest. We have to hold onto trust and have a little faith to make it through. It’s an intentional choice to wake up each morning and believe that God is still working. He is not holding out on us, and He has not forgotten us.

Walking in the Wilderness

While there is no simple step-by-step way to navigate seasons of wilderness, there are a few things that can help us to find purpose within them. These are the actions that I took in my own wilderness, even though I wasn’t fully aware of them at the time:

Do The Next Right Thing

If you’ve seen Frozen 2 you know that part where Anna sings the song by this same name. I know it’s an animated Disney movie, but this part of the movie always makes me tear up a little. Anna is making the active choice to put one foot in front of the other and take small steps even in the midst of her grief. 

In my own season of wilderness, I just did one thing at a time. I found an apartment to move into, I moved my belongings out of a storage unit, and I found myself a job as a barista. I focused on my studies and volunteered in the student ministry and worship team at my church. And when the time was right, I started searching for ministry job openings and found the right opportunity that led to the next season of my life. It was through these small steps of doing the next right thing that I was able to walk confidently in the storm.

Seek Out Community

Most of the time we feel alone in our wildest seasons. We believe that what we are going through is ours to handle and that others can’t relate. One of the biggest lies the enemy tries to speak over us is that we are alone. Yes, we may be physically alone at times, but God is always with us. We are never truly alone. We do, however, need to find good Christian community to come alongside us as we walk through our difficult seasons of life (and the good ones too). Community helps make our walk feel more manageable, as we are being supported and encouraged along the way.

During my wilderness season, I sought out community through a small group. I stayed connected to friends that I had spent my summer with. My new job also gave me opportunities to meet new people and connect with my coworkers. Being involved in my church also helped me to find support from those around me.

Look for Goodness Right Where You Are

It’s often hard to see goodness when our minds are racing and we feel lost in the woods. But if we take time to slow down, catch our breath, and look around us there is so much beauty just asking to be seen by our eyes. There can still be goodness in our wildest seasons if we have eyes to see it.

My own wilderness season was filled with nature walks with my sister’s dog Harper on my days off. One day toward the beginning of this season, I took Harper on a walk to our city’s nature park. We came across a massive growth of sunflowers there. The growth was so thick that it seemed like there was a wall of yellow flowers before us. 

That fall was filled with orange and yellow foliage, and my job brought out the best smells of espresso as I improved my latte art. I excelled in my online courses, and my professor asked if she could use my essay as an example for future classes. Best of all, I met my husband during this season of my life.

Goodness still grows in the wildest parts of our lives.

Be Open To God’s Provision

Within the vast wilderness, it can be difficult to see the ways that God is providing for us. Life feels barren and empty, and our loneliness feels unbearable. But even in that place of desperation, God is providing. We have to open our eyes to the small and sometimes unique ways that He is making a way for us.

As I took one small step after the other, God continued to provide. He gave me an apartment and a job. He gave me those sunflowers that reminded me that beauty still exists. God gave me little joys and wonders when I was lost that reminded me of who he is: a Creator who is still creating beauty today. 

We have to be open to the ways that God is providing, even if it’s in something as small as a really good latte or unexpected wildflowers. He is in all of the small things, and those things display His ability to provide.

Ask Continuously “What Lesson Is God Trying to Teach Me?”

When we come across struggles in life, we often ask “why is God doing this to me?”. I believe that is the wrong question to be asking. Instead, we should be asking “what lesson is God trying to teach me?”. 

Even in wilderness, there are lessons to be learned. What could those be for you?

As you continue to walk in the wilderness or encounter wilderness seasons of life, may you remember that there is purpose within the struggle. There is beauty waiting to be seen. And God will be glorified through it all.