When God Uses Trials to Humble, Teach, and Bless Us

<p>     In Deuteronomy 8:1-10, we observe where God humbled His people, Israel, in order to teach them divine truths and help them advance to spiritual maturity. The challenge before them was to walk by faith, obeying the Lord’s directives. </p> <p>     Moses opens this pericope with the statement, “All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to give to your forefathers” (Deut 8:1). God desired to bless and multiply His people by giving them the land He’d promised to the patriarchs, but according to the Mosaic Covenant, the inheritance was conditioned on their obedience to Him. Moses used the Hebrew word מִצְוָה mitsvah which, here, referred to the whole corpus of laws he was providing. </p> <p>     Moses’ instruction included remembering their past and God’s testing them during the forty years of wilderness wandering. Moses said, “You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not” (Deut 8:2). Moses used the Hebrew verb זָכַר zakar, translated remember, several times in His address to the nation (see Deut <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heADU1_mq0g&t=315s'>5:15</a>; <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heADU1_mq0g&t=438s'>7:18</a>; <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heADU1_mq0g&t=498s'>8:18</a>; <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heADU1_mq0g&t=915s'>15:15</a>; <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heADU1_mq0g&t=972s'>16:12</a>; <a href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heADU1_mq0g&t=1458s'>24:18</a>, 22). The Israelites were to intentionally recall to mind God’s forty years of guidance in the wilderness for the purpose of humbling them, to test them, in order to reveal what was in their hearts. Remembering God, His commands and blessings, is set against the danger of forgetting, which will lead to ru