Wilderness is a thought-provoking word, filled with unhappy connotations for the human heart. It brings to mind landscapes of unending desolation, barren, unproductive, and buffeted by fitful winds.
In absolute Science the wilderness never exists, for all reality is in God, good, and man is His image and likeness. In reality, there is no error, for all is Truth. Actually there is no disappointment, discord, or struggle, for man reflects God harmoniously and effortlessly. In Science all mortal belief is unreal. In human experience, however, belief seems to present a wilderness of tangled opinions, confused doctrines, sin, sickness, and death. The real spiritual man has never been in the wilderness, for his eternal existence is intact. Humanity must prove the unreality of the desert experience and work its way outward to freedom through demonstration and spiritual progress.
The Hebrew prophets described the wilderness in terms of their own partly desertlike country. Drawing their metaphors from the everyday experience of their listeners, they used the brier, the thorn, and the thistle, "the waste howling wilderness" (Deut. 32:10), to symbolize the uncultivated, barren thought. The fruitful vine, tender herb, and green pastures typified the longed-for peace and security of the kingdom of heaven. Isaiah foretold the coming of John the Baptist and the revelation of God's glory in the words (Isa. 40:3-5): "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God, Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: ... and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."
