The Wilderness Between Who You Were and Who You’re Becoming

No one talks about how disorienting obedience feels once the applause fades. Everyone loves the mountaintop moment of surrender—the altar call, the breakthrough, the fresh wind of conviction. But no one warns you that after your “yes,” God often leads you straight into obscurity. That obedience is not always followed by immediate fruitfulness, but by wilderness.

And that wilderness doesn’t mean you’re off course, it means the old has died. We love to talk about transformation, but rarely do we talk about the process of it. And even more rarely, do we frame that process through the lens of biblical discipleship. Transformation is not linear. It is not comfortable. And it is not controllable. It is death and resurrection, pruning and replanting, refining and rebuilding.

And in the middle of that process, there is often silence. There is grief. There is confusion. There is the ache of no longer being who you once were, while not yet knowing who you’re becoming. This is where most people turn back. Not because they lack sincerity, but because they’ve been sold a false gospel; a version of discipleship that equates obedience with reward and breakthrough with comfort.

But Jesus never offered clarity. He offered a cross. He offered Himself.

The Lie of Immediate Reward

We’ve been conditioned (often unconsciously) to believe that obedience guarantees immediate outcomes. That if we say yes to the call of God, our circumstances will shift, our peace will increase, and the evidence of His favor will follow like clockwork. But this is not the pattern of Scripture.

Abraham said yes and waited decades.

Joseph said yes and was betrayed, falsely accused, and forgotten.

David said yes and fled to caves.

Jesus said yes and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, not away from it.

This is the theology we must recover: the theology of the middle. Because the biblical pattern is not obedience followed by reward. It is obedience, followed by wilderness, followed by formation.

The wilderness isn’t punishment. It is preparation.

It is the space where what is not of Christ is stripped away. It is where appetites are revealed, idols are exposed, and false identities are broken.

This is not God’s failure to act. This is His mercy, making you into someone who can steward the very thing you’ve asked Him for. But if you believe that God’s approval is proven through immediate outcomes, you will misinterpret the wilderness as abandonment. And worse, you’ll start to think the process is broken when in reality, it’s the only path to true maturity.

Sanctification Is Surrender, Not Self-Improvement

True transformation does not come through striving. It does not come through strategic life hacks or emotional highs. It comes through sanctification: a Spirit-led process of surrender, death to self, and resurrection into Christlikeness.

And sanctification is not passive. Nor is it gentle.

Hebrews 12 tells us that the Lord disciplines those He loves. Not punishes, disciplines. Meaning He forms, He trains, He shapes, He prunes, and He corrects. Sanctification cuts. It exposes. It demands participation.

Colossians 2:6–7 says, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith.” That’s active language. That’s endurance language. That’s partnership.

You don’t drift into maturity. You walk in it, through obedience, through perseverance, and through the daily surrender of your will to the leadership of the Spirit.

This is why transformation doesn’t feel empowering in the way the world defines it. It often feels like weakness. Because power in the Kingdom is not self-generated. It’s received. It’s yielded. It’s perfected in surrender. Maturity is not the result of trying harder. It’s the fruit of staying surrendered when nothing makes sense.

Disorientation Doesn’t Mean You’re Lost

When everything familiar is stripped away (thing like relationships, rhythms, internal narratives) it’s easy to assume you’ve lost your way. But biblically speaking, disorientation is often the first evidence that God is doing something deep.

Israel didn’t get lost in the wilderness. They were led there. Not by their flesh. By God Himself. And they resisted, not because they didn’t believe in the promise, but because they couldn’t handle the ambiguity of the process.

Numbers 14 tells us that even after all God had done, they longed to return to Egypt, preferring the predictability of bondage over the mystery of freedom. Why? Because the soul clings to what it knows, even when it’s dysfunctional. That’s the tension: familiar slavery often feels safer than unfamiliar wholeness.

And that’s where many believers turn back.

They interpret disorientation as danger, when in fact, it is the necessary death of false orientation (of identities built on loss, on victimhood, on performance, on striving in the flesh).

The wilderness exposes those things and invites you to root yourself fully in Christ, not in the remnants of your past. And that process, while painful, is the only path to becoming who you were created to be.

The Brain Doesn’t Know the Difference Between Growth and Danger

I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating: What complicates the process even further is that your neurobiology is not built for transformation. It’s built for survival.

At a neurological level, change is threat. Your brain interprets uncertainty as danger. Neural pathways, those patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, have been carved over time through repetition.

When you stop feeding them, they don’t just disappear. They fight back. You feel anxious. You feel dysregulated. You feel like something’s wrong. But what’s happening isn’t wrong. It’s holy. This is the pruning of John 15: the removal of what no longer bears fruit so that new fruit can come. And pruning is not quiet. It’s not neat. It’s disruptive. That’s why Scripture commands us to renew our minds (Romans 12:2), because, without that renewal, the pull back to dysfunction will always feel safer than the push forward into formation.

You’re not losing your mind. You’re losing your patterns. And that loss is what creates space for new roots. That’s not a psychological trick. That’s a supernatural work. And the Spirit partners with your biology to do it. But don’t let your nervous system dictate your theology. God is not absent just because you feel ungrounded. He is present. And He is pruning.

Silence Is Not Always Intimacy

We love to say that when God is silent, He is drawing us close to Himself. It conjures a cozy feeling.

But let’s be theologically precise.

Sometimes silence is discipline (read: training). Sometimes it’s Holy Spirit-sanctioned restraint. Sometimes it’s a test. And yes—sometimes it is intimacy.

But the silence of God must be discerned, not romanticized. We cannot afford to project our emotions onto His ways. Job heard nothing. David cried out. Jesus Himself said, “My God, why have You forsaken me?” Silence is not inherently holy. But it is an invitation to trust.

Silence invites you to remember what God has said. Because maturity doesn’t cling to fresh words. It anchors itself in the eternal Word. When clarity disappears, and the emotional high fades, the question becomes: Will you stay faithful to what you heard before the silence began?

My friend, that’s where true maturity is formed.

You’re Not Stuck. You’re Being Made New.

If you feel the weight of disorientation and if you feel like you’ve lost more than you’ve gained lately, welcome to the club.

You’re not stuck. You’re being remade. The old you—the version of yourself built on fear, a victim identity that pathologizes every life struggle, performance, and control—is being crucified.

That’s not a poetic metaphor, either. That’s the biblical process.

Galatians 2:20 doesn’t say, “I adjusted” or “I coped.” It says, “I have been crucified with Christ.” That’s why it hurts. That’s why it feels like loss. Because it is.

But that loss is unto life. Resurrection is not a return to what once was. It’s a step into something completely new. And yes, it will be unfamiliar. But it will also be fruitful. Just not on your timeline. God is not in a rush. He’s not interested in shortcuts. He factors in the human condition in His plans, no doubt. Rather, He’s after root systems that can withstand storms. And those don’t grow in comfort. They grow in surrender. They grow in obscurity. They grow in silence. And they grow in obedience, even when no one sees.

Resurrection Doesn’t Always Look Like You Think It Will

Let’s be clear: resurrection always comes. But it rarely looks the way we imagined.

For Joseph, it looked like leading in Egypt, not returning to Canaan. For David, it looked like ruling a divided kingdom, not just slaying Goliath. For Jesus, it looked like ascending with scars, not avoiding the cross.

The promise of resurrection is not circumstantial restoration, it is eternal vindication. And while some of that fruit will be seen in this life, much of it is stored in heaven. That’s why we don’t measure the success of our obedience by what we can see. We measure it by faithfulness. Because that’s what God rewards. Not popularity. Not ease. Not immediacy. Faithfulness. So if you’re in the wilderness, I implore you to stay faithful. If you feel like you’re losing yourself, stay faithful. If everything familiar has been stripped…stay faithful.

Because what He’s doing in you is deeper than you realize. And He will finish what He started. That’s not “Osteen”-ological sentiment. That’s Scripture.

And it’s the ground you stand on when your feelings fail you.

You Were Never Called to Clarity. You Were Called to Trust.

Another truth worth repeating: If you only follow when you understand, it’s not faith you’re walking by—it’s sight.

The walk of faith is not marked by constant confirmation. It’s marked by obedience in the absence of it. That’s why Hebrews 11 lists names of people who never saw the fulfillment in their lifetime, and yet they were commended.

They didn’t walk by outcomes. They walked by conviction.

And that is what the Lord is after in you: a faith that endures. A maturity that doesn’t quit. A rootedness that doesn’t depend on applause or results. Because you’re not just being transformed for your sake. You’re being formed for His glory and His purposes.

You’re being prepared to carry something holy. And holy things can’t rest on shallow foundations.

So, my friend, let the wilderness do its work. Let the silence refine your listening. Let the pruning break your addiction to comfort. Let the disorientation untangle you from old idols.

I know it’s hard.

Resurrection is coming. But only if you stay in the ground long enough for it to rise. Be sure to read part two of this topic here.

If this work is helping you heal what’s holding you back and walk in wholeness, you can invest into the mission here. For more, I invite you to check out my book, Healing What You Can’t Erase, and listen to my weekly podcast, Win Today: Your Roadmap to Wholeness.