Hidden Treasures in Disappointing Deserts

The Necessity of the Desert in Character Formation

Barely eight months into our marriage, we moved a thousand miles north from Southern California to Beaverton, Oregon. It was a step of faith. Since my college days, I dreamed of pastoring in the Pacific Northwest. A door opened, and we stepped through.

But the first six months were far from a dream come true. The church that hired us was large and influential. But it was clear that my wife, Laura, was the one they really wanted to hire. I was an add-on. They had to make up a role for me. That’s how much they wanted Laura—they were willing to create a job for her husband in order to hire her.

Because of this, my role at the church was ill-defined, lacked responsibility, and had zero opportunities to exercise my passion for preaching. Ambitious by nature, my anxiously driven 26-year-old self was at a loss. I felt like a failure. The ministry career I imagined for myself a few years ago was nothing like this. I imagined a high level of leadership, preaching regularly, and a decent salary (for a pastor, that is). But this job was part-time, preaching opportunities were nonexistent, and the extent of my leadership domain consisted of, well, writing discussion questions for the youth group based on sermons I didn’t preach. The marching orders were clear: just do what was assigned, keep your head down, and stop asking to preach in the youth group.

This was either a detour, a setback, or a sign that I was not made of the material required for pastoral work.

My ego took a hit. I was deflated.

Meeting Keith

A couple of months into our time there—at a particularly low point—I had a conversation that I will never forget. One of the pastors on staff—a man who, at this point, I did not have a full conversation with—was Keith. He was the go-to pastoral care pastor. If there were walk-ins, people in crisis, or people who needed to be visited, Keith was the guy. In his early seventies, he had four decades of pastoral work to his name. His character exuded humility, love, and wisdom. He taught the way of Jesus just by his existence.

At the time, I knew little about Keith. I just knew I wanted to get to know him more. There was something about his character that drew me. We shared a moment of brief small talk. But then he shared that he planted and pastored a church in the area for a few years before joining the staff at the church we served. He shared, “I successfully grew it from zero to fifty to zero in five years.”

This caught me off guard.

“Oh? You had to close the church? That must have been hard.”

His response is ingrained in my mind.

“Oh yeah. It was brutal. A real desert season. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. That is where character formation takes place.”

The Disappointing Deserts

In the Bible, deserts were places of testing and temptation. Israel, liberated from slavery in Egypt, did not simply cross a river into the Promised Land. There were forty years of desert detours. Jesus, emerging from the baptism waters and receiving a word of identity and vocation from his Father, did not instantly embark on his public ministry. He was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days of fasting and temptation.

Deserts are not fun. They are boring, lonely, and deeply disappointing.

But they are necessary.

I was, figuratively speaking, in a desert. These words from Keith were the encouragement I needed—water in a dry place for this thirsty soul. I found encouragement knowing that what I was going through was not a setback. I was not a failure. This was necessary for my character.

Hidden Treasures in Disappointing Deserts

Why are deserts necessary? Why did Israel have to go through a desert, thus providing numerous examples of temptation failure? Why did Jesus enter a desert to be tempted, thus providing an example of overcoming temptation?

According to Dr. Gerald May in his book Addiction and Grace, “The desert is where battle with attachment takes place.”¹

The deserts expose our idols. They surface our attachments. Our attachments can be addictions, thought patterns, and aspects of our lives in which we seek satisfaction apart from fellowship with God.

During this time in my life, a particular attachment was confronted: ministry success and recognition. My vision of the good life involved ministry success. But I found myself in a role that was nothing to celebrate. Recognition was what I craved. Hiddenness was what I received—hidden, boring, unassuming tasks when I longed to preach and lead. These attachments were exposed for what they were: idolatrous desires that entangled my soul. The solution? The desert of disappointment where I was stripped of these misplaced desires, and could only cling to the love of God.

Jesus, before his public ministry, willingly entered the desert. Who am I to assume I could sidestep the desert? Far from a detour or setback, this was the logical, necessary path.

Not long after that conversation with Keith²—a conversation that changed my life, but he likely forgot—I received another hidden treasure in the disappointing desert. One Sunday morning, my wife and I sat together in one of the church services. The lead pastor was out of town, so the youth pastor preached. I had not preached a sermon in months—not even in the youth group at this new church. I was the part-time youth admin, chomping at the bit to preach to a room of any size, but sidelined.

Envious, I sat next to my wife in one of the pews. As the youth pastor preached, I thought of all the ways I would preach the same text better than him. Partway through his sermon, Laura looked at me, leaned over, and whispered these words: “I am just as proud of you sitting here next to me as I would be if you were on that stage right now.”

Anxious ambition for success and recognition took a significant blow. The love of God mediated through the love of my wife, filled the empty space—necessary character formation in the desert when I, stripped of all else, had no choice but to cling to the love of God.

I would not trade those six months for the world.

May you embrace the disappointing desert and find the holy, hidden treasures within.

1. Gerald G. May, Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), 134.

2. Though I moved to Montana last year, Keith and I still connect monthly by phone. Time with Keith is like a tuning device to an instrument—it helps me re-align (re-tune) my soul with a vision for who I want to become.