For any of us feeling longing in Advent:

Even though Jesus’ experience in the wilderness wasn’t easy—he fasted for forty days and forty nights and was confronted by the devil—the devil was not the only one he encountered there.

The spirit sent Jesus into the wilderness, rejuvenated with the affirmation of his identity in God’s eyes, and allowed him to step away from his day-to-day life until the noise and hurry of the world around him was stripped down to the point where he could easily distinguish the voice of the accuser from the voice of the Father.

The same can be true for us.