I wrote a post in May 2022 entitled Out Of, Into which was inspired by the Biblical account of the Children of Israel leaving the bondage and slavery of Egypt and entering into the land promised to them by God. In the post, I talked about the importance of leaving old and unproductive things behind and taking the bold step of entering into something new.

According to scholars, the time from when Moses first spoke to Pharaoh until the Israelites left Egypt was roughly a year. That’s their “Out Of”. The time from when Joshua led them across the Jordan River until they had conquered Canaan was roughly seven years. This is covered in the Book of Joshua and is obviously their “Into”. The overwhelming majority of their time, forty years, was spent in the desert. In between. No Man’s Land. The DMZ. As it turned out for them; the crucible of their lives.

While most of the drama of their story, which led to those forty years, was self-inflicted there are real-life lessons in it for us just as in nearly every movie you’ve seen or story you’ve read. The central figure has a crisis and resolves to do something about it. They are met with resistance, fail and consider giving up, but somehow find strength to keep going. They reach their goal in the end. A beginning, a middle and an end. Egypt, the Desert, Canaan.

Imagine all those stories without the middle part. Luke Skywalker’s aunt and uncle are killed by Darth Vader. Luke kills Vader. The end. Connor MacLeod realizes he is an Immortal and is kicked out of the clan. Connor kills The Kurgan. The end. The cub, Simba is wrongfully accused by Scar of Mufasa’s death and leaves the pride. A grown Simba comes back and banishes Scar. The end.

Boring. Those aren’t stories, they’re news.

We admire what the hero or heroine has to go through – we root for them to make it – and we rejoice with them when they overcome impossible odds through sheer tenacity and stand victorious on their life’s battlefield.

But the stuff that makes a story a good story all happens in the middle. In the desert. In my non-movie, real-world experience it’s the part of my story where nobody is looking, no one’s even aware. Everyone sees the happy ending, and everyone wishes us well when we set out on our journey, but by and large we make that desert journey alone. I think God designed life that way because the middle parts of our stories are times of transformation. It’s a process, it’s usually painful and necessarily private.

David said “You knit me together in my mother’s womb…my frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together.” (Psalm 139:13,15) The desert is the secret place where we move out of what we were and morph into what we will become, the same way David described a baby being created in the womb.

One of the truths the desert has taught me is that it exists in my life because I can’t take the old guy into the new reality. Imagine whiney, bratty Luke fighting Vader, or baby Simba challenging Scar. It doesn’t work, it can’t work. They didn’t have the tools, skills, knowledge and most importantly, the experience that leads to the self-confidence required to succeed. In the same way, when we set our sights on higher endeavor, be it spiritual, educational, athletic, business or otherwise, the person we are must become the person we need to be to not just succeed but to thrive. That is a serious process that calls for some time in the desert.

Jesus said, “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined.” (Mark 2:21-22) New and old simply cannot coincide together, there must be a transformation somewhere in order for what was old to function in what is new. If you shrink the unused cloth, it’s able to patch an old garment. Wine fermentation releases forty times more CO² than the actual juice that’s in the vat. That has got to happen outside of a wineskin before the wine can be useful and enjoyable. Jesus is simply stating natural truth that everyone of His day understood. If we’re going to move out of where we are, into where we want to be, we’re going to have to go through a process which involves two parts.

The first part must come first and it’s the most painful part of the process. This is the stuff we lose, the stuff we shed, the stuff we leave behind. Things we’ve grown attached to, ways of doing things, ways of thinking. People or places we’ve grown attached to. Things we need to unlearn and unbelieve; especially wrong thoughts and beliefs about ourselves. We will never become a better version of ourselves clinging to old versions of ourselves. And we certainly will never become a better version of ourselves by persisting in wrong thinking about ourselves.

As if the pain of this shedding process wasn’t enough, we almost always have to face the opinions of others. Detractors, deniers, doubters. Armchair quarterbacks are a dime a dozen and usually the loudest voices when we commit to our deserts. When we set out on our road, theirs are the loudest voices at the starting line. The good news is that they have no desire for desert life. Once they realize we’re committed to our road, they go back to the comfort of the starting line armchair, criticizing some other would-be desert road traveler and leave us alone. A good friend of mine once said of them, “Don’t tell me what color to paint the wall. Pick up a brush or sit down and shut up.”

Again, Jesus shows us the value of going through painful transformative processes by comparing them to basic, observable truths. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” (John 15:1-2) Pruning is the painful aspect of increase, yet anyone who has ever grown anything in a garden understands its value. Pruning may hurt, but it does not harm. In fact, it strengthens and is a vital part of the process of enjoying really good produce. It’s just as true for becoming a better version of ourselves. Strategic pruning allows for exponential growth.

Today’s athletes are great examples. We are never shown the daily training regimen, the strict dietary discipline, the hours in the weight room, the early to bed, early to rise lifestyle. This is the process high achieving men and women voluntarily endure to go from also-ran to the top step of the podium. ESPN doesn’t get up at four a.m. to go on that ten-mile run every day with them. They do it in the dark, and they do it alone. All paths to excellence, becoming and great achievement run through the desert.

The second part of the desert process are the things we pick up. The things we add to ourselves; the improvements. Lessons learned, knowledge gained, routines perfected, muscles strengthened, talent deepened, focus sharpened. The things gained here are the one percent difference makers that James Clear brilliantly discusses in his book, Atomic Habits. These things only come by challenging the status-quo, by questioning what always has been and by asking what could be. Having set aside things that held us back, we’re free to focus on the only question that matters: How can I improve? and not quit until we answer the question.

This is why it’s so important to go through the painful pruning phase of our desert road. We’ve got to make room for new thoughts, new processes, new ideas, even new dreams. We’ve got to become open to ideas we’ve not considered and paths we’ve never explored. We’ve got to learn to hear from people who think differently than we do, developing open mindedness. We’ve got to turn over every stone, examine every possibility, consider every angle. Anything that can aid us in achieving our objective is worthy of consideration. This naturally involves a lot of trial and error. The amount of time and patience we exercise in this phase of the desert will determine the quality and excellence with which we emerge from it.

I’ve boiled it down to a simple formula that I intend to write a book about. I can, I will, I act, I am. Belief, Determination/Commitment, Action, Becoming. Simple formula, painful process. But oh so worth the price we pay to achieve it.

Deserts are uncomfortable. They’re hot during the day and frigid at night. There aren’t a lot of amenities around. Food and water can be scarce and the view pretty much doesn’t change from day to day, even from season to season. But the desert also has a few things going for it that will aid you on your road through it.

A desert is quiet; once the armchair quarterbacks at the starting line are out of earshot, that is. That gives us the opportunity to develop and practice stillness. Ryan Holiday’s Stillness Is The Key is a gem that anyone serious about transformation would do well to read. Stillness is the place where we can honestly consider the things we need to let go of and evaluate the things we need to take hold of on our road. I wrote a post called The Value Of Stillness that digs into this topic more deeply.

Deserts also have a lot of hidden beauty waiting for us to find, but aren’t visible until storms or desert monsoons blow through and produce a phenomenon known as “desert blooms.” Lying dormant, unseen, sometimes for months or years, these plants and flowers spring up from nowhere after these rains. They are also accompanied by a proliferation of insects and birds.

It’s a great visual to describe the emotional and mental storms we bring with us into the deserts of our lives. We’ve got to bring those things in with us, and we’ve got to unleash them and go through the struggle they produce, but when we do so with daring and integrity the results can be as magnificent as a true desert bloom. Do a Google search on “desert bloom” and click the images tab. You’ll be inspired.

Some desert journeys are short, some are long. Like the Children of Israel, we have a say in how long we stay there. Their mistake was whining and complaining which produced a bad attitude and ultimately led to quitting. After two years in the desert, as they were about to enter the land God promised, they allowed discouragement at the sight of enemies in Canaan waiting to be fought and the inability to see themselves as able to defeat them cause them to want to return to slavery in Egypt. They wasted their time in the desert. They didn’t lose the slave mentality of Egypt, neither did they gain confidence in the God of Israel who promised to deliver them into as mightily as he delivered them out of. That decision caused them to stay in the desert another thirty-eight years. The majority of those who left Egypt died in the desert having never realized the goal they left Egypt to achieve.

We all have an Egypt in our lives and a Canaan we’d prefer to live in. That land is promised to all, but only the ones who have the courage and commitment to walk the desert road from start to finish will get there. As Moses said to the Israelites; “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

I pray you’ll choose well.