“You shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has 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 you would keep his commandments or not.  And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed 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: “which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the 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 to us from God. And therefore the Lord lets us 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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Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).

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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.

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