A to B

After Jesus was baptized, he was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

 - Matthew 4

Our big tests always occur immediately following our moments of victory. You reach a goal, and then rest . . . which is the same as letting down your guard.

Not only had Jesus just been baptized, but he next goes to a wilderness place, near mountains. I can imagine it was a place of natural beauty; a retreat setting. But it was there, separated from others, fasting for forty days and forty nights, that He was at His physically weakest.

God has a plan for us. And getting to His will, I have come to believe, could be a short, straight-line process. In God's perfect will, we can go from Point A to Point B. Easy; and then it's done.

But we choose our own way. And therein comes the testing, the disappointments, the discouragements. We give up. But we lose heart at exactly the moment when we should veer back to the easy task of collecting God's prize for us. And we know we're being disobedient. Yet we persist in doing it our way.

Instead of going from Point A to Point B, we end up going to Point C, and then D, and all the way to Z, before getting to B, which is where we should have gone in  the first place.

How does this tie in to Christ's temptation in the wilderness? This didn't seem easy for Him! Well, it wasn't. But between his baptism and the launch of His ministry, he came to a crossroad where he could have chosen C, D, or E; and these were what the devil offered Him. Choosing the right path does indeed give us tests, and trials. And we may become discouraged. But the discouragement (illness, financial loss, etc.) need not defeat us. 

A to B is the shortest way. It may require us to go through swamps, brambles, snares. But we get to the end sooner, and we end up not hurting others along the way.

God gets us where He wants us. We just tend to make it harder than it needs to be.