Raw and Renewed: Deliverance in the Desert

Nichole Berlucchi ponders what we can learn from Jesus' time in the desert as we observe the season of Lent.

I have always been a Lenten soldier—checking all kinds of boxes to do the right things, pious things, things that showed people I was in it to win it. I know … terrible, but also true. This Lent I feel the Lord inviting me to a serious recollection of self. Specifically, he wanted to get me isolated. Me and Him. The desert. I know it’s cliché … but it’s true. The Lord asked me to go there with Him.

So I spent time with the Scripture: the desert, where God the Spirit drew God the Son to prepare Him for God the Father’s mission, and I suddenly found myself a student learning many things while simultaneously exposed as both tempter and tempted. The Lord asked me to look closer. I considered a few questions:

Why the desert?

Jesus could’ve been driven up a mountain or onto a boat where He often foes in the Gospels, but instead He starts in the desert. He starts in emptiness. He starts in a dry land, barren, a landscape where humans thirst and long for shade, exposed to elements. He starts in a place to experience human weakness. He starts in a place where you would feel a great need for many things. He is teaching us how great missions are born—in choosing to accept our deserts, not fight them, not succumb to them, but simply be in the desert and accept it as preparation for something greater.

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What are the temptations really about?

When I am in places of desolation, dryness and depletion, I often start doing a few things: grasping for control, making my own plans (convinced they’re God’s plans too—ha!), having drastic reactions, and telling the Lord He needs to get to work—that I am getting tired of His way. I asked myself if I can relate these temptations Jesus experiences to my life and this is where I saw myself as tempter.

In the desert, Jesus refuses to use His power—God’s power. He refuses to abuse God’s power to bring Himself relief of His human hunger—turn stones to bread. In this temptation, I see the times when I take control, when I decide I know a way to ease the pain or pang my desert is causing—I want more money; I want more vacations; I want more things that I want. I see myself telling the Lord, I am tired of sacrificing; turn my stones to bread.

In the desert, we see Jesus refuse to test God. He refuses to do something drastic to prove that God the Father will come to His aid to show He has value or worth—throw Himself off a cliff to see if angels will come minister to Him. In this temptation, I see myself making decisions and challenging the Lord, saying things if You love me, why is life so hard? Why is this not easier? Why did this person hurt me, why did that person die, when are You going to show up?

In the desert, we see Jesus refuse to set His eyes on something other than God. He refuses to trade heavenly power for earthly power—He had no desire to be made ruler of all He could see on earth. He knew in His soul what is worth reigning over and what is passing. In this temptation, I see myself longing for respect, for admiration of others—maybe even envy of others; I see myself comparing how I measure up with others—do I do more/less, have I accomplished more/less, do I have more/less, and being filled with sinful pride or envy, basing my worth on worldly things as if they could ever truly compare to my worth in God’s eyes, as if they mean anything eternally.

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In the desert, we see Jesus refuse to set His eyes on something other than God. #CatholicMom

What does the desert teach us?

In Scripture, Jesus has angels come and minister to Him after He overcomes these temptations, but I was still feeling lost, so God made it simple for me in morning prayer soon after:

They tested God in their hearts demanding the food they craved. (Psalm 78:18, NABRE)

In my outward prayer, I was acting as if I was Jesus in the desert readily overcoming every temptation, but in the barrenness of Lent, the truth was exposed. I was playing the part of tempter … demanding signs from God of His power, demanding earthly things of Him, rather than heavenly things and challenging His care and love for me.

This realization felt raw. It left me feeling exposed. And then I remembered that’s exactly where God prepares us for mission: in the desert. Has the desert brought you to new lows to experience new highs? Prayers for your time in the desert!

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