Name: Wells in the Wilderness
Author: Mentor Morris Njogu

About the book

I have written elsewhere about discovering purpose, about knowing why you are here. This book asks a different question. Once you know what you are carrying, what keeps it alive when the seasons turn against you? What do you do when the bread runs out halfway through the journey, when the people who were supposed to support you send you away, when your dream lies under a bush and you cannot bear to look at it?

This book is written to walk you back to the bush, to help you lift your Ishmael again, and to pray with you for opened eyes, because the well is already there.

The desert is not where your purpose dies. It is where you meet the God who sustains it.

Greatness is God’s department; faithfulness is yours.

Written for

Young people whose dream or assignment has stalled: the graduate with no job, the young hustler whose capital has dried up, anyone pushed out by family or friends (from the Introduction and Dedication).
Readers on their own with a notebook, or in a group or with a mentor.

The book, laid out like a course

3 parts and 11 chapters. Open a part to see what each chapter helps you understand.

Full outline

Part1

The First Wilderness: When You Run

01The Servant Girl Who Entered the StorySmall beginnings in someone else’s house: why a servant season is preparation, not wasted time.
02The Spring on the Road to ShurWhen you run, God comes looking: El Roi, the God who sees, and the first well.
03When Purpose Looks Like a ProblemThe long season in between: Ishmael was not a mistake, and faithfulness in the long middle sustains purpose.

Part2

The Second Wilderness: When You Are Sent

04Banished but Not AbandonedWhen the people you depended on send you away, rejection can be redirection and God remains the source.
05Desert PlacesWhere purpose is refined: what the desert tests, clarifies and reshapes, and passing through rather than settling.
06A Bowshot AwayWhen you can no longer bear to look at your dream, and the danger of keeping a safe distance from it.
07The Cry of PurposeWhat heaven hears when you cannot pray: God answers His own word over what He placed in you.
08Lift the Boy UpReconnecting with your assignment: the question, comfort, instruction and promise in God’s word to Hagar.

Part3

The Wells: When Your Eyes Are Opened

09The Well That Was Always ThereGod opens eyes, not only wells: provision is often already near, and prayer changes sight.
10Provision Follows PurposeThe well was for the boy: provision is tied to the assignment, comes quietly and changes with the seasons.
11Through Every SeasonGod was with the boy as he grew: deserts can become places of skill, and wells outlast the moment.