If you are a regular reader you will know that over the past few weeks I have been reading ‘The Spirit of the Disciplines‘ by Dallas Willard. I have mentioned here a few times some of the themes and questions it has raised. Something that the book suggested in my reading yestoday has really made me think.
The famous accounts of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness can be found in Matthew 4 and Luke 4. Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness, and Luke tells us that throughout this time He was tempted by the devil. This is an interesting point to start with as we often think of this being a time of Jesus fasting but the temptation not coming until the end.
After 40 days the tempter came to him again and offered Jesus the three famous temptations; turn the stones to bread to feed His hunger, bow before the devil to inherit the world, and put God to the test by throwing Himself off of a tall tower. Of course we know, Jesus claims a great victory in resisting the temptations but this whole period of ‘the wilderness experience’ is often portrayed as a time of great struggle and almost weakness for Jesus. Indeed, that is why the term ‘wilderness experience’ is often used to describe a time of struggle we may be going through in our relationship with God.
Willard is suggesting that this completely the wrong way to be looking at this. He suggests that the time in the wilderness was one of great strength for Jesus. And even a time where Jesus grew in strength. It wasn’t the case that Satan approached Jesus to try and tempt Him when He was at His lowest point. Far from it, it was only when Jesus was at His strongest that the tempter was allowed, given permission, to approach Him. For we know that Satan has to ask permission from the Father to approach us, and the Father only allows as much as we can handle.
It seems that the time of fasting, solitude, and no doubt, much prayer and meditation in the wilderness gave Jesus the strength He needed to overcome the devils evil schemes. We know that Jesus spent much time in the wilderness ( Luke 5:16) and excising the Spiritual Disciplines. If Jesus needed to do this then how much more do we?
