“Remember the long way that the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness” (Deuteronomy 8:2). It’s an important reminder that we did not get where we are all in one day. There has been an extensive process that has brought us to this time and place.

There is a reason for this long road, Moses told the Israelites: God led you this way “to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart – whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna” (8:2-3).

There are those who blame God for the hard times that befall them (although they do not credit God for the blessings that come their way). There are also those who give thanks for the good things that happen (although they hold back from ascribing painful circumstances to God). But the text here acknowledges God’s full sovereignty over it all. God is the one who made you feel hunger. And God also fed you with manna: “with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, to make you understand that one does not live not by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of Lord” (8:3).

God wants us to understand that life isn’t just about bread and the other things we consume: it is about living by the word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. And therefore God makes us feel hunger, and tests and humbles our hearts. We should notice, then, that despite the many examples our Lord has provided, over the centuries and in our own experiences, we do not appear to have become any quicker to learn this lesson than earlier generations in ancient Israel.

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Help us, O Lord! Grant us the courage to pray that you will humble our arrogance, so that we may indeed learn that we live not in our own strength, not by what we can accomplish, but by the word that you speak, and by the grace that you provide.