In the quiet solitude of his study, Pastor James stared at the half-written sermon that seemed to mock his efforts. After 20 years of ministry, he found himself in an unfamiliar spiritual landscape—barren, dry, and seemingly abandoned. His prayer life felt mechanical, his sermons uninspired, and his pastoral visits perfunctory. “Lord,” he whispered, “where are You in this wilderness?” Little did he realize that his desperate question was the beginning of a profound journey that would transform not only his ministry but also his understanding of God’s presence during desolate seasons.
Throughout Scripture and church history, we discover that wilderness experiences are not exceptions to faithful ministry but essential components of it. Moses spent 40 years in Midian before encountering the burning bush. Elijah collapsed under a broom tree, depleted and despairing. John the Baptist emerged from the wilderness with a message that shook a nation. Even Jesus was “led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1, NIV) before embarking on His public ministry. This pattern reveals a profound truth: God often does His deepest work in His servants during times of His seeming absence.
For pastoral leaders today, such wilderness seasons manifest themselves in various forms—emotional exhaustion, spiritual dryness, ministerial disappointments, or even the quiet desperation of success without satisfaction. While contemporary ministry culture often treats such experiences as problems to be solved through better techniques or renewed effort, Scripture presents them as sacred encounters to be embraced rather than escaped.
The wilderness pattern in Scripture
The Hebrew concept of midbar (wilderness) appears more than 300 times in the Old Testament.1 Far from being just a geographical location, it represents a spiritual terrain where God’s servants experience profound transformation. The wilderness was where Jacob wrestled with God, Israel was formed as a nation, and David composed some of his most heart-revealing psalms. This pattern continued into the New Testament, where John the Baptist’s wilderness ministry became the preparation ground for the Messiah’s arrival.
What makes such wilderness experiences particularly significant is that they were not merely tests of endurance but transformative encounters that reshaped identity and clarified calling. Consider Moses, whose 40 years in Midian transformed him from an impulsive prince to a humble shepherd before God called him to lead. Those years were not wasted time but essential preparation, removing self-sufficiency and creating space for divine empowerment.2
Similarly, ministerial wilderness experiences today—seasons of doubt, dryness, or disillusionment—can function not as interruptions to effective ministry but as divine interventions to deepen it. They strip away self-reliance, purify motives, and create receptivity to God’s presence in ways that success and abundance rarely achieve.
The contemporary pastoral wilderness
“I feel nothing when I pray anymore,” a senior pastor at a recent ministerial retreat confessed. “I lead worship, counsel others, and preach about God’s presence, but I haven’t felt it myself in months.” His vulnerable admission opened floodgates of similar confessions from other church leaders—testimonies of private struggles beneath public ministries.
Such experiences are increasingly common in contemporary ministry.3 According to recent studies, nearly 75 percent of pastors report significant periods of depression, burnout, or spiritual aridity during their ministry. The pressures of congregational expectations, administrative demands, and the unrelenting pace of modern ministry create perfect conditions for spiritual depletion.
Yet our theological understanding of such experiences often remains underdeveloped. When wilderness seasons arrive, many pastors interpret them through one of three inadequate frameworks:
First, they see it as personal failure requiring increased effort. “If I pray more fervently or serve more diligently, this feeling will pass,” many reason, adding exhaustion to emptiness.
Second, some view it as evidence of God’s displeasure or abandonment. “God has removed His hand from my ministry,” some conclude, compounding spiritual dryness with unwarranted guilt.
Third, some see it as a purely psychological phenomenon requiring only clinical intervention. While mental health support is often valuable and necessary, treating spiritual aridity as merely a psychological issue can miss its deeper spiritual significance.4
Scripture offers a more comprehensive perspective. The wilderness in biblical narrative functions not primarily as punishment nor abandonment but as a divine classroom—a terrain specifically designed for profound spiritual formation.
The divine purpose in ministerial drought
Why would God lead His servants into wilderness experiences? Scripture reveals several recurring purposes:
Identity formation precedes ministry function. Before God entrusts significant ministry responsibilities, He often deepens a leader’s understanding of their identity in Him. In the wilderness, stripped of performance metrics and external validation, ministers rediscover who they are when no one is watching and nothing seems to be happening. When ministry becomes wrapped in personal identity, wilderness seasons create necessary separation between who we are and what we do.5
Pastor Thomas experienced this when health issues forced a six-month sabbatical. “For twenty years, I was ‘Pastor Thomas’ before I was anything else,” he reflected. “When that was temporarily removed, I had to rediscover who I was simply as God’s beloved child. That revelation transformed how I returned to ministry.”
Dependence replaces self-sufficiency. Successful ministry can quietly foster self-reliance. The wilderness exposes this deception by creating circumstances beyond our control or ability. Moses, skilled in Egyptian leadership techniques, spent forty years learning shepherding before God could use him to take charge of His people. His burning bush encounter came only “after those many days” (Exod. 2:23, ESV) when human strategies and timelines had been thoroughly surrendered.
Similarly, ministerial wilderness experiences demonstrate the insufficiency of our own resources. Sermons prepared from empty wells reveal our need for divine filling. Pastoral care offered from depleted reserves exposes our need for Shepherd-care ourselves. The very experiences that seem to threaten ministry effectiveness often become its foundation when they drive us to absolute dependence upon God.6
Revelation emerges from such seeming emptiness. Throughout Scripture, significant divine revelations occur in wilderness settings. Moses encountered the burning bush in “the far side of the wilderness” (Exod. 3:1, NIV). Elijah heard the “still small voice” not in the wind, earthquake, or fire, but in the silence that followed (1 Kings 19:12, NKJV). Jesus received angelic ministry after—not before—enduring wilderness temptation (Matt. 4:11).
Pastoral wilderness seasons similarly create unique receptivity to divine communication. When familiar patterns and comfortable certainties get stripped away, we develop greater capacity to hear God in unexpected ways.7 “It was only when I stopped frantically seeking an answer,” one minister testified, “that I finally had the silence to hear what God had been saying all along.”
Navigational principles
How then should pastors respond when facing spiritual dryness or ministerial drought? Scripture and church tradition offer several navigational principles:
Embrace rather than escape. Our instinct during wilderness seasons is to find the quickest exit, treating spiritual dryness as an abnormality requiring immediate correction. Yet Scripture presents a different approach. Jesus “was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1, NIV), indicating divine intent rather than happenstance. Similarly, pastoral wilderness experiences may be divine appointments rather than detours—sacred terrain to be traversed rather than avoided.
Such a perspective transforms how we experience ministerial dryness. Rather than asking only “How can I get out of this desert?” we begin inquiring, “What is God teaching me in this place?” Resistance gives way to receptivity when we recognize the wilderness as holy ground.8
Maintain spiritual practices without demanding immediate results. During wilderness seasons, spiritual disciplines often feel mechanical and unrewarding. Prayer seems to bounce off the ceiling, Scripture reading feels like little more than an academic exercise, and worship becomes a professional duty rather than a personal delight. The temptation is to abandon such practices until the feeling returns.
Yet it is precisely in these seasons that faithful continuation of spiritual disciplines becomes most formative.9 Like the persistent widow in Jesus’ parable (Luke 18:1–8), there is profound spiritual power in showing up before God without immediate reward. “I continued praying daily even when it felt like shouting into a void,” shared a veteran pastor. “Looking back, those seemingly unanswered prayers were shaping me more profoundly than many of my ‘mountaintop’ experiences.”
Find companionship for the journey. Wilderness experiences often intensify feelings of isolation. Yet Scripture rarely portrays solitary wilderness journeys. Moses had Jethro’s household, God reminded Elijah of 7,000 others who remained faithful, and angels attended Jesus. Similarly, pastoral wilderness seasons require intentional community—trusted colleagues, spiritual directors, or friends who can offer perspective, accountability, and encouragement when personal clarity is lacking.10
Trust the wilderness timing. Perhaps the most challenging aspect of wilderness experiences is their indeterminate duration. Days stretch into weeks, weeks into months, sometimes months into years. Human nature craves timelines and exit strategies, but wilderness seasons rarely provide them.
Here, Abraham’s two-decades-long wait for Isaac and Israel’s forty years of desert wandering remind us that God’s formative work often operates on a different timeline than our preference. “The wilderness lasted three years for me,” one pastor reflected. “In year one, I begged God for escape. In year two, I surrendered to the process. Only in year three did I begin to recognize the transformation occurring within me.”
From wilderness to wellspring
The ultimate purpose of wilderness experiences is not merely survival but transformation. When embraced rather than merely endured, ministerial wilderness seasons become the very soil from which renewed ministry grows. The pastor who emerges is not simply the same leader with renewed energy but a transformed servant with deeper wells from which to draw.11
When Jesus returned from His wilderness experience, Luke records that He came “in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14, NIV). His ministry demonstrated an authority and authenticity that flowed directly from His wilderness preparation. Similarly, pastors who navigate their wilderness seasons with faithfulness often discover new dimensions of ministry effectiveness unavailable before.
Wilderness-shaped ministry has distinctive characteristics: increased compassion for others in barren seasons, greater discernment between essential and peripheral concerns, deeper reliance on God’s strength rather than human effort, and authentic testimony to God’s sufficiency in all circumstances.12 Such qualities cannot be learned in seminaries or leadership conferences—they are forged only in the crucible of personal wilderness experience.
Where transformation occurs
“I wouldn’t choose to go through that season again,” reflected Pastor James two years after his period of spiritual drought had ended, “but neither would I trade what it taught me. I minister differently now—more from God’s sufficiency than my ability, more from authenticity than performance. The wilderness taught me that God’s presence isn’t dependent on my perception, and His purposes continue even when progress seems absent.”
For ministers currently experiencing wilderness seasons, take heart. Your desert is not divine abandonment but sacred terrain where transformation occurs. The God who led you into this place has a purpose in it and will be faithful to lead you through it.13 In the meantime, may you discover, as countless faithful servants have before, that the wilderness itself becomes holy ground when we recognize God’s presence even there.
- Walter Brueggemann, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2002), 89.
- Eugene H. Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2012), 127.
- Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), 45.
- Diane J. Chandler, Christian Spiritual Formation: An Integrated Approach for Personal and Relational Wholeness (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014), 156.
- Gordon T. Smith, Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God-Given Potential, rev. ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2011), 89.
- Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: Connecting With God Through Prayer, Wisdom, and Silence (New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 2003), 78.
- Belden C. Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007), 123.
- Marva J. Dawn, The Sense of the Call: A Sabbath Way of Life for Those Who Serve God, the Church, and the World (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 167.
- Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth. 25th anniversary ed. (San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 2018), 112.
- Eugene H. Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 89.
- A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God: Their Meaning in the Christian Life (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2009), 145.
- William H. Willimon, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry, rev. ed. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2016), 234.
- N. T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2012), 178.
