More Desert Anyone?

Having thought about being 'found in the desert' I also read, this week, a brief extract from Dallas Willard's 1988 classic "Spirit of the Disciplines'. In it Willard considers the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness before confronting temptation and evil and a face-to-face battle with the enemy of his soul. Because we see the desert as negative and fasting as deprivation, Willard says, we think of Jesus as reduced to his greatest place of weakness before this confrontation takes place. But what if the reverse is true? What if the Holy Spirit takes Jesus into the desert to make him stronger for the battle? What if the 40 days is a boot-camp, detox and fitness regime rolled into one, bringing Jesus to tip-top, world-beating warrior condition to face his foe? What if the place of silence and retreat, of fasting and discipline and being alone with God - the wilderness of prayer and encounter - is precisely where we need to go to be made strong? How might that change the way we view the disciplines today?