Hearing in the Desert

There are places that stay with you.

Not because they are full—but because they are not.

Recently, I had the opportunity to spend time in the Chihuahua desert with one of our daughter communities in Mexico. And as I found myself again in that wide, open, sunbaked land, a familiar pull returned.

The desert has always drawn me.

When I was younger, I spent months at a time working cattle on a ranch in the high mountain desert of New Mexico. Even earlier than that, I was raised in the high desert of western Colorado. Those years were deeply formative—quietly shaping the way I see the world, the way I listen, the way I think.

And for reasons I didn’t fully understand at the time, I was always drawn back to that kind of place.

It steadied something in me.

At times, it even felt as though my soul was soothed there.

This is not only a personal experience.

There is a pattern to it.

Throughout Scripture, the desert is not incidental. It seems that it is intentional.

Moses spent forty years in the wilderness, far removed from the life he had once known as prince and conceivably even potentially, heir to the throne of Egypt. And it was there—after long silence—that he noticed something unusual: a bush burning, and yet not consumed. When he turned aside to look, God began to speak. That moment redirected the course of his life.

Later, he would return to that same wilderness, leading a people who were themselves learning how to live away from the structures that had enslaved them and that they had yet depended on. Again, it was there, in that silent, barren desert, that he received direction, power, and… a mission.

Elijah fled into the wilderness exhausted, discouraged, uncertain in fear for his very life. His efforts to call his people to repentance and back to God, seemed to have borne little fruit. His voice had not been heard. The people that he was reaching for, were now seeking his life, and he found himself alone, asking questions that had no immediate answers.

God met him there.

Not in spectacle, but in stillness.

After the wind, after the earthquake, after the fire… a quiet voice.

And with that voice came direction, the assurance that his ministry was not in vain, that it would continue on after him and that yes, there were still 7000 who were still faithful to the same cause that motivated him.

John the Baptist emerged from the wilderness also calling his people to repentance. And yet even he, at one point, found himself asking, “Are you the one… or should we look for another?”

In the desert, there will still be uncertainties but also the expectation that they will be dispelled.

And then Jesus Christ Himself was led into the wilderness—not by accident, but by the Spirit. There, in that dry, barren stillness, He encountered both the voice of God and the voice of the tempter.

The desert does not remove all voices.

It reveals them.

It exposes them.

So the question remains:

Why the desert?

Why does God so often meet people there?

I found myself considering this again recently, and pondering it with my brother-in-law as we arrived together in the Chihuahua desert.

And the answer, at least in part, seemed to return with clarity:

In the desert, the noise fades.

The excess falls away.

There are no layers of distraction cushioning us from ourselves, from life and even from God.

As I have recently noted, Søren Kierkegaard observed that affliction has a way of “silencing all irrelevant voices,” and I think the desert does something similar.

It brings life down to its essentials.

There is a kind of exposure there, a sense of the fragility and immediacy of life. And in that kind of environment, only what is truly necessary begins to matter.

Everything else grows quiet.

And in that quiet, something shifts.

It is not that God has suddenly begun to speak.

It is that we are finally able to hear.

This has implications far beyond mere geography.

Because most of us will, at some point, pass through deserts that are not merely physical.

Seasons where things feel dry.

Where direction is unclear.

Where the nearness of God seems less obvious than it once did.

And our instinct is almost always the same:

To get out.

To fill the silence.

To move quickly past it.

But what if those seasons are not something to escape or dread?

What if they are something to enter and begin to listen?

What if they are not evidence that God has withdrawn—

but that He has removed what was keeping us from hearing Him?

We live surrounded by noise.

Not only external noise, but internal noise—competing desires, divided attention, restless thoughts. We are rarely still long enough to discern what is actually being said beneath it all.

And so when a season comes where that noise begins to fall away, it can feel disorienting.

Uncomfortable.

Even frightening.

But it may be that those are the very conditions required for clarity.

What would happen if we approached those seasons differently?

What if, instead of resisting them, we entered them with expectation?

What if we sought the voice of God in those moments the way we would seek water in a desert?

Because when you are truly thirsty, you do not search casually.

You listen carefully.

You watch closely.

You respond quickly.

You are attentive in a way that comfort rarely produces.

And perhaps, in those dry and quiet places, something will begin to emerge.

Not always dramatic.

Not always in the immediate form that we would choose.

But real.

Sustaining.

Guiding.

Returning from this short time in the desert, I find myself asking:

Am I listening?

Am I quiet enough to hear?

Am I willing to let the unnecessary things fall away so that what matters most can come into focus?

And there is an invitation here.

Not to seek the desert for its own sake—but to recognize it when it comes.

To not rush through it.

To not become numb to it.

To not escape it too quickly.

But to turn… and to look.

Because it may be that in those very places—

we may begin to see what we have overlooked.

A bush burning, and yet not consumed.

And if we are willing to draw near…

we may find that God has been there all along.

Waiting.

To speak.

To lead.

To guide.

To answer…

If this resonated with you, you may also want to watch the full video version of this reflection here: