2 months ago I woke up to a number of disturbing texts from a close friend. She was in a funny state of mind, suddenly, she couldn’t pray, she struggled to worship and she began to question everything in our faith. This was quite weird for me cause this is like the Silas to my Paul so I wasn’t sure what to say to her because I know she knew everything I could’ve said, but it was now a heart issue.

I still took it upon myself to remind her of all that she is in Christ and the assurance Christ gives to us through faith.

The first couple of weeks were rough for her mostly, but also for me, a lot of our conversations had shifted from ending in exclamation marks of certainty to question marks of concern.

We would end the chats with her telling me to pray for her when it was usually the other way around. While I had already committed to doing that, I was still happy inside that she still believed that prayer could do something which was why she could still ask me to pray for her.

She wasn’t suicidal or depressed, she was just in a wilderness where she couldn’t see anyone or any sign, unfortunately, even as her friend, I couldn’t be in the wilderness with her, I could only hold her hands when we spoke virtually and lift her name in prayer.

One thing we kept saying she needed to do was talk with God, however she could, listen to the word more, worship more and just encourage herself to do all that she use to do before with ease. She felt very uncomfortable doing these suddenly but she complied.

It got so bad for her to the point where during family devotions at home, she would be praying internally that they didn’t ask her to pray, cause she didn’t even seem to know what she believed anymore. It seemed like an attack on her faith spiritually.

I wrote about a similar experience here. where I felt like I was getting farther away from God but It didn’t make sense cause I was pressing in even more. But I later understood that I wasn’t seeing it from Gods perspective.

With her as well, I observed that God had began to do a foundational work in her life, something somewhere was not right and like a building with faulty foundation, it began to crumble, but God was not unaware, it was like He allowed the crumble to fix the foundation to stop any future crumbling.

2 months later, she’s fully back to herself, back to sending me messages to listen to and sharing rhema word with me, back to updating her WhatsApp status with edifying content that could come only from the secret place, back to pure peace and joy in the Holy Ghost!

And honestly, I haven’t forgotten the previous phase quickly, I’ve actually been thinking about it for a while since she ‘became herself again’ and the Holy Spirit has taught me through this that not all wilderness seasons are demonic attacks or backsliding.

Sometimes, it is necessary foundational work and pruning needing to be done and we must be discerning enough to know what exactly the Father is doing in us.

I’m super glad to have her back, but having seen her, a few other close friends and even myself go to that place, I am convinced that we must stay alert and open to the work of the Holy Spirit in us. When inconvenient times arise, we need to be sensitive to yield and submit to the process.

God is never unfaithful to forget your labour of love. So in case you get to such seasons, pay attention, God is drawing your attention to something and He does this only because He loves us and wouldn’t want to see us crumble at a later time for something He could’ve dealt with now.

I love the work of Abba in us His children. We don’t always understand it, but I promise, it is always all for our good. Just yield.