You lead us through the wilderness

You lead us through the wilderness
and give us grace for trials and tests.
Your Holy Spirit shows the way
and in our weakness teaches us to pray.

We'll worship in the wilderness,
a dry and thirsty land.
We won't survive by bread alone
but by your Word, and guided by your hand.

As Jesus fasted forty days,
so help us turn from selfish ways,
to trust in you, and learn to give
for when we die to self we'll truly live.

You join us in our brokenness,
and comfort us in our distress,
For you're the hope of all who mourn
you lead us to your resurrection dawn.

Final chorus
We'll worship in the wilderness,
and trust the path you've planned.
You're faithful in the wilderness,
and by your grace we'll reach the promised land.

I have written this specifically for Lent, but with the thought that it could also be used at other times when you want to sing about meeting God in the dry or barren times of life. My inspiration is mainly drawn from Jesus' wilderness testing - I find it so encouraging that the Bible says Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. This suggests to me that we too can expect times of testing, times perhaps when God may seem more distant, but in fact he is there all the time and will give us grace and his Holy Spirit to get through them. The final chorus has echoes of the Israelites time in the wilderness on their search for the Promised Land, which I believe Jesus was in a sense re-enacting and fulfilling during his 40 days.

Lent has been a season I have really grown to love over the last few years. A couple of times we have chosen to give our church bands a 40 day break over the period, and strip the worship times down just to acoustic guitar or piano. I hope this simple recording might inspire you to do a similar thing, and the song might help you go deeper into Lent this year.