The Israelites were not hungry as they wandered in the desert as a result of poor food rationing. Their entire life depended on God and God established their hunger and lack of food and wandering to make that truth clear. Does this make God some bully who seems to enjoy messing around with his creation even up to the point of some of the Israelites dying in the desert? It actually means just the opposite. The same God who brought the Israelites out of 400 years of slavery is the God who is, in effect, wandering with them in the desert. The Israelites were not abandoned to the desert. They were made to wander with God.
In the middle of their rebellion and grumbling and hatred towards the God that miraculously brought them out of slavery, God did not turn his back on them. God did not give into their pleading to be led back into Egypt and slavery because of their lack of food. God did not relent and raise up another to take the place of Moses when the great multitude began to malign him and call for another leader. God did not abandon His people when, in their hearts, that is what they wanted. God knew better and still knows better.
God did not abandon the Israelites; instead, He made them wander for forty years. He brought them to a place of discouragement and opposition within themselves in order to grow them and to show them who their God was. The wandering and discomfort of seemingly traveling nowhere is exactly the means that God used to show them who He was. The mistake, which is often arrived at, is to assume that because Israelite people suffered God was nowhere to be found. That assumption forces one to join suffering and the reality of God’s existence as if they are somehow related to one another. Suffering does not destroy the existence of God and the absence of suffering does not prove the existence of God. The Bible teaches that it is in the midst of the Israelites wandering and suffering that God was present and active among them. He dwelt with them.
The same reality is to be applied to our lives as we attempt to reconcile two realities: 1) we may feel as though we have been wandering or are currently wandering, which leads us to believe that God has left us, and 2) God declares that He will never leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6).
Could it be that in your season of wandering God is showing you a greater picture of himself than you have ever seen before? Is it possible that the times in which we have felt most alone have been graciously and mercifully granted to us by God so that we may come to see Him as all satisfying? Dare we thank God for the periods in our lives when He has so provided a space for us to come to him in a way that we would not have been able to do without His orchestration? I humbly and whole-heartedly announce YES!
When God makes us wander we know that it is for His glory and for our good (Romans 8:28). And, when God makes us wander, we know that He who began a good work in us will surely bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6). This means that if you love Christ and yet are feeling like you are alone in the desert, you are not alone. The God of all creation is with you. In the words of Douglas Wilson, “The winter is breaking. This is not just a thaw but promises to be a real spring.”