Our lives have often moved from transactional (a checklist of what to do or more often, what not to do) to transformational (being changed by our world and those in it through interaction). That's what you've captured in your observation. It is harder to allow yourself to be transformed and even harder yet to allow others to transform.

I suppose the author of this devotional knows the derivation of the word for wilderness (although she doesn't say that) but it seems that going into the wilderness is indeed moving away from the stimuli of the world and all the distractions swirling around us into an unknown place where new and unique insights may be found, I haven't been able to see wilderness as anything but away from all the noise and OK because God is taking you there.