>>No Mentor Necessary?<<

[EA]

Have you ever considered the fact that John the Baptist had no mentor?

Moses had Jethro, Elisha had Elijah, Joshua had Moses and Timothy had Paul, but what of John the Baptist? It seems he had no fleshly mentor in this world.

After four hundred years of spiritual darkness, John the Baptist steps on the stage. In his lifetime, the people of God were in a spiritual, economic and political wilderness.

John was a solitary figure, content to be alone with God in a desert place.

And it’s important to realize that John the Baptist did not think of the wilderness as a prison, that he wasn’t banished to the wilderness, rather he enjoyed the wilderness lifestyle. He loved the solitude of the wilderness, and he fostered a sense of intimacy with God there.

He was away from the religious systems of his day, away from his family and away from the politics and news of the day. He was alone, with God. And in that wilderness, God spoke with him, molded him and shaped him into His image.

Instead of organizing a bunch of people, sometimes God takes individual men, gets them alone, and molds them as he sees fit.

• He takes Moses to the backside of the desert until he is ready to become a great deliverer.
• Leads John the Baptist into a wilderness until the day of his showing forth.
• Leaves Jesus in thirty years of obscure training before he ever ministered.
• Lands Joseph in a pit and a prison, before he found purpose and the fulfillment of his dreams.

And I really believe God used all of these horrible circumstances in these men’s lives, just to get them alone with Him. God brings them away from their religious systems, their families and all outside influences so he can mold them into His image.

The separation is necessary because, without it, there is just too much spiritual noise that drowns out God’s voice to these men.
God wants men and women who are patterned after His image. Christians who will follow His will. People who will submit to a wilderness experience, and love it.

I believe we benefit from godly mentors. I also believe there are times when God calls us into wilderness experiences just so that he can speak special things to us, and prepare us for a ministry that our mentors and peers would balk at.