Wilderness.

So God humbled you, allowed you to hunger…
as a man chastens his son, so your God chastens you…
For He is bringing you into a good land…
in which you will lack nothing…”

-Deuteronomy 8:1-20

Being in a desert can be a scary thing. Neverending stretches of barren land roll out before you, there is no water for miles and not a glint of hope in sight. You thirst and hunger in a parched land, nostalgically consider the rich and fruitful land you had envisioned walking into and become disillusioned, doubtful.

Have you been in that situation before? All this while you had a goal in mind, shaped your entire life around it and then suddenly find yourself lost, if only for a moment. Questions steamtrain through your mind- have I been foolish? Maybe I’m not up to it. Maybe I heard God’s voice wrong. Perhaps my real calling is elsewhere?

They call it being in the Wilderness-

– where the days are scorching and the nights freezing, because all at once, you are thrown into a deep end, no longer anchored by that gravitational sense of directed purpose, but only quiet doubt and fearful questioning. Nothing but blind faith on a daily basis can keep you walking on. It is a time where vision and faith are both tested, and only those prepared for a refinement of their hope in God will make it through. Do you sometimes feel like that too? That all of a sudden, you’ve been put in a dry place, and while you know God is somewhere there, you wish He were well, more of here?

There is a story in the bible about Moses leading his people out of a land of slavery into a land of bounty. Because of the hardness of the people’s hearts, however, they walked through the desert for forty years before reaching the Promised Land. It was hard, but God provided for their physical needs at every step of the way, providing no more and no less for each day. They could have arrived earlier, but had it not been for that refining period of testing and moulding, surely they would not have received their blessings with hearts of humility, love and thanksgiving.

It is through the wilderness that our characters are moulded, our visions refined, our callings deepened.

Since returning from Nepal and finishing the local missions programme course, I too felt as if I had walked into a desert. For the first time, I gravely question my “call” into medical missions. Is it my dream or God’s? Is it His plan or has the dream become an idol? Should I just let go and allow life to unfold, or continue to hold onto something which stirs my being so restlessly?

When I was little I remember I was dead sure I wanted to be Mother Teresa. It was a childhood dream of some sort, on top of being a picasso painter and president of UNICEF or something. And then when I found God and medicine, the dream became more real, the calling clearer. Then everything I ever knew became shaped around this newfound sense of purpose, this future I felt led into. Everything- from what I did with my spare time, to the struggles I wrestle with, to how I approached medicine, to the books I read, to the kind of overseas elective programmes I applied for, the kind of person I decided to be with for the rest of my life, to the things I talked with God about, became shaped according to this dream.

It was the Promised Land.

But it seems, I’ve reached a point in my journey with God that I begin to doubt myself. God, is this where you’re leading me? In Singapore, medical graduates have a 5 to 6 year bond to serve, where we have to work locally, and hence, most medical missionaries start their work among the poor in developing nations only when they’re at least 30. So what then, between the here and the not-here-yet? Am I supposed to continue to hold on to this vision, or simply let go?

I have become comfortable in this land of luxury, the lures of this world have become more real to me, and I wonder if I had been foolish, naive, shortsighted or proud, to have even thought that God put medical missions in my heart. It scares me to know how my heart breaks each time I listen to the lives of long-term medical missionaries, but it scares me more as I doubt myself and question God. It scares me to know that I am becoming a creature of comfort, that my heart burns a little less fiercely than it did before when I was still fresh with zealous passion for God’s needy people.

All this time I had been so sure. Then it was like a scene change in a theatre production and I was found in a desert background. Maybe it’s called growing up. Maturing. Mellowing? Or simply, just going through a refining phase. I find myself not so sure of my “calling” anymore. That doesn’t scare me.

It petrifies me.

To a certain extent, it is shaking part of the foundation of my faith. Everything in my life seemed to lose its bearing for a while. I am not used to not having a clear direction from God to work towards. I keep wondering- has this all been my own imagination? What if God has a different plan and am I willing to do it? But then, why would God not call me to this if I am willing to be sent? I thought I heard Him so clearly, so why all this doubting now? And I am wrenched because of the price I seem to pay for this vocation- yet, what is my sacrifice compared to what God did for us on this Sunday 2000 years ago?

Nonetheless, I find myself thrown into a desert with no destination in the horizon- and I’m not used to this.

But I am learning, we will never understand God nor life, and we can only take a step at a time to walk out of our deserts. In the wilderness, a lot of people become disillusioned, give up, or walk away, but I remind myself that what’s important is that we walk day by day in trust, continually knocking and seeking God for direction. We are blessed if we received light for the many miles ahead, but are blessed still if we received enough food for the day itself.

And more than reaching the Promised land, perhaps what’s most important is the journey we take in getting there. For it is only in the desert, in our poverty and brokenness that our pursuit for God becomes stronger, and the intents of our hearts become purified.

Why medical missions. For yourself, or God and the people He loves?

So even though it is hard now, I know even this wilderness has a purpose. And so I will continue to walk slowly forward, in awe and reverence, and perhaps, even take the risk to continue to challenge my inadequacies, learn medicine, live life in the present, love people, as if I were going to work in the medical mission field someday, and as if I were already there. Yet, doing so in a way which trusts that whatever God has planned must be best.

I really do not know. This is harder to do than I thought.

After all, Moses and his people did reach the Promised Land, didn’t they?

“And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness,
to humble you and test you,
to know what was in your heart…”

-Deuteronomy 8:1-20