The Cry in the Wilderness

As I write, it’s 2025, and much has taken place over the last five years. Prophecies are being fulfilled, God is on the move, and the new era really does seem to be breaking over the horizon like a fresh dawn.

However, among the good news and new innovations, there is also a cry in the desert lands of some Christian tribes that is rising to heaven like fresh incense, born of desperation, weariness, and sometimes even trauma, tinged with a sense of prophetic longing.

The other day, I read a social media post from a young former mega-church staffer. Can you hear the ache in his heart-cry?

“I was on staff at a church for a decade. Now I don’t serve anywhere.
I led the ministry teams
I built the structures
I coached the leaders
I wrote the curriculums
I managed over 1k volunteers
I went to the conferences we post quotes from
I’ve been around all the big names
I sat in the cars. Ate at the tables. Heard the private versions of the public names (especially the failures).
And I loved it… until I couldn’t anymore.
I didn’t “lose my faith.”
I lost my ability to pretend.
To pretend I was OKAY leading while disconnected from myself.
To pretend the metrics meant transformation.
To PRETEND performance was presence.
What I loved about church (the people, the purpose, the sacred space)
was slowly getting buried under strategy, pressure, and the unspoken rule:
“DON’T BLEED HERE.”
So I stepped away.
Because I knew if I stayed, I’d LOSE MY SOUL in the name of saving others.
I still believe in Jesus.”

I find this sentiment expressed a thousand times over on social media and in private conversations with ministry leaders, teams, and volunteers. It’s a weary cry from souls that have given themselves to what they hoped was ministry, but they’ve found themselves in a dry and fatigued wilderness. It may or may not be the models they engaged with that were at fault. Maybe it was their own soul management that was at fault? Either way, some analysis of why so many are feeling this is necessary.

Isaiah speaks of “the voice of one crying in the wilderness” as though the desert lands are a common birthing place for new divine days. Just as the Spirit led Jesus into a wilderness to prepare Him for new ministry days of power, perhaps a desert season is God’s preparation place for us all?

Have you been in the desert? Are you there now? Is your soul in a harsh place, a disorientating space, a dry, inhospitable, wild landscape, with few streams, little sustenance, and scant visible, familiar orientating landmarks? God leads us there to prepare us for glory.

Look how Isaiah 40 continues:

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth; And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.’”

Where is the cry? In the desert.
Why is the cry? We’re preparing for glory.

Dry, hostile, grief-tinged wilderness days are often God’s way of preparing us for new glory days. So don’t despair if you’re there. Actually, it’s a time to be a little excited.

I declare that even in the wilderness, God is with me. Just as He led Israel through the desert with a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, so He leads me step by step (Exodus 13:21).

The wilderness is not my end but my preparation (Deut 8:3). I declare that streams will flow in the desert and a way will be made in the wasteland, for the Lord promises, “See, I am doing a new thing!” (Isaiah 43:19).

Today, I choose to trust God in the dry places, knowing the wilderness is where He strengthens my faith, renews my heart, and prepares me for the promises ahead.

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