This is true for those who follow the prosperity gospel. Have any of you ever heard of this? The prosperity gospel links faith to material success and well-being. One of their primary beliefs is that God will give believers their heart’s desires, including money, a healthy body and happiness.

Kate Bowler, a professor at Duke Divinity school, you will remember her as we have used some of her devotions in the past. She specialized in studying the prosperity gospel. She traveled around the country talking with celebrities and televangelists who follow this theology and wrote a history of this movement in her first book. She learned a lot about their belief structure and how it plays out in real life. In her book, “Everything Happens for a Reason and other Lies I’ve Loved,” She writes this, “…I did discover that the prosperity gospel encourages people (especially its leaders) to buy private jets and multimillion-dollar homes as evidence of God’s love. So, this is the outward appearance they want to convey. Bowler goes on to say, “But I also saw the desire for escape. Believers wanted an escape from poverty, failing health, and the feeling that their lives were leaky buckets.” This is the inward reality, right. So, it seems believers of this Prosperity Gospel  want to escape from “wilderness” experiences. But is there not something to gain from wilderness experiences?

Kate Bowler knows her own heart, and desires. As she thought more about the prosperity gospel what she wanted to report that what she found studying this gospel was so foreign to her and so terrible that she would reject it. Aren’t we the same? We can be quick to say, oh no I would never be a part of something so outrageous! Laura and Rebekah what do you think, should we buy a jet? But what Kate discovered this about herself, “was both familiar and painfully sweet; the promise that I could curate my life, minimize my losses, and stand on my successes. She said she had her own prosperity gospel; married, with a baby, a dream job. I can see how that can creep into our thinking. She summed it all with these words, “ It was certainty, plain and simple, that God had a worthy plan for my life in which every setback would also be a step forward. I wanted God to make me good and make me faithful, with just a few shining  accolades along the way.” I wonder how many of us hold a little of that prosperity gospel inside of us. If I just pray enough and do the right things everything will go smoothly for me. No wilderness experiences that I can’t easily overcome!

The wilderness and deserts are where God’s people have often had divine encounters with God. Remember, God was with the Israelites in the desert, every day they were reminded that God was there, God was present. Gradually they were transformed from slavery to freedom, gradually they were transformed from a dying existence to coming back to life. And now in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is having his own wilderness journey, a time of testing, a time of preparation. A time to experience God’s presence in and through the Holy Spirit. This passage speaks  to our lives right here and right now. The three tests hit at the core of life challenges, especially as people of faith. Satisfying one’s own needs (serving oneself, personal wants and needs), power and control over others and then wanting proof again and again of God’s presence.

Jesus began his wilderness journey filled with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is who lead him into the wilderness. This wilderness experience instilled a purpose, a reality of God’s abiding presence, an assurance, a strengthening occurred…because Jesus was not alone. Jesus needed to have this wilderness experience!

We all have wilderness times of our faith lives, perhaps we simply ignore those times just hoping they will pass away or maybe just maybe we see these wilderness times as a sign of God’s absence, a negation of our faith …the challenge is to find God at those times when our own lives seem void of the richness of faith. Jesus this morning is our teacher in finding God in the wilderness.

Kate Bowler quickly had to let go of her prosperity gospel when she suddenly was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. Lost in a fog of uncertainty she asked these 3 questions. Why? God, are you here? What does this suffering mean? She wrestled with these questions throughout her blood tests, endless doctor visits, chemotherapy, through experiencing the ravaging effects of cancer treatments. The prosperity gospel didn’t quite fit her anymore her whole understanding of the world and how things worked just didn’t make sense anymore. Her way of thinking and seeing things through her mind didn’t lead her to where she needed to go.

The wilderness was her home. Or I should say, cancer was her home. This is what her wilderness experience taught her, “The horror of cancer has made everything seem like it is painted in bright colors. I think the same thoughts again and again. “Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard.”

Something valuable and significant happens within us when we face our own wilderness. Jesus’ own wilderness experience helps us see this. He offers us a fuller life in reminding us that it is not the external world that determines our understanding and meaning in life, it is not the terrain surrounding us, it is the inward journey of our hearts connected to the living God. Loss and death are part of the wilderness journey, oh yes we must let death come so we can come back to life. Come back to life in a new way. Thank you Holy Spirit for life is so beautiful and life is so hard! Amen