“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.  There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. (Hosea 2:14-15)

Would it not be our heart’s desire to have our fruit on the mountaintop?

Yet, we see clearly the wilderness holds our fruit, according to Hosea. The very place of crushing yields that which grows to serve others Christ will soon send to us for help.

In God’s scheme of things, there seems to be a valley of trouble that is the hallway to hope. Be it at times a very long and daunting hallway, nonetheless, it is still the pathway to some hope of Jesus not yet known to us.

We see in this passage there is a “door.”

A door is an entryway to something else. Some other place. A new place, or at the least, another place.

I am sure that my own heart did not expect a ministry expansion through a hallway of trouble. Yet, it was so that in an inner despair I learned the heart needs of others in grief, loss, and pain. My eyes could now recognize the suffering heart that was yet to share. I had a “God knowing” that someone was in trouble before they ever told me.

This was the fruit from my wilderness season.

I often say, sometimes we “take one for the team.” In other words, we come to a place when we surrender that it might at times be painful to be used by God.

But as we near His heart more and more we understand little by little that it is the most intimate place with Him where we train to equip others in need.

I can promise you today that you will make it through the help of Christ and if I can offer any encouragement it is that my wilderness yielded far more fruit than any other season of my life.

Yours will also.