the returning

What is the result of having struggled in the wilderness and overcome? Is the struggler made stronger? Is he scarred? Weakened, so that his dependence is increased? I wonder if we would find Jesus, after his baptism, at the end of his stint in the wilderness, more dependent as his work began to more fully shift between realms. His struggle on earth reached a new height of spiritual dimension that day.
Throughout the Bible we find people struggling in the spiritual realm and being physically impacted by it. We are told that Jacob wrestled the angel and that as a result, he limped the rest of his life. I often wonder if Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” existed before his being struck down on the road to Damascus. Many surmise that his thorn was poor eyesight (“see how I write with such big letters with my own hand”). That could certainly be related to his being struck blind on the road that day.
I wonder if there is a direct correlation to spiritual strength and physical weakness. “For his strength is made perfect in my weakness.” I wonder if there are struggles that are designed not to make us stronger, but to make us weaker. Our self-absorption allows us to assume that God is always growing us and making us stronger, but maybe he is weakening us so that we are more dependent on him.
Certainly, at the end of 40 days without food, Jesus was weak and hungry - we are told so. In fact, it was this very thing that Satan attacked first in his last ditch effort to defeat Jesus.
I’m pretty sure that I won’t go off into the wilderness again expecting to come back stronger. I already knew that a part of you is lost there. Maybe it has to be surrendered there. Each returning renders me a bit weaker, a bit more dependent, and a bit more sure. May I return every time more strongly surrendered.