A Desert Lesson

Photograph by Sam Abell

I was just looking over some verses I'd memorized a couple of years ago, to refresh them in my mind....and came across two of them from the book of Deuteronomy in the Torah ...and was suddenly struck by a new understanding contained within them...a deeper look at the heart of God to us as expressed in his discipline, or in our pain and suffering.  And by the way, "discipline" does not necessarily mean an action of harshness taken by God against us in response to a specific sin.  Music is a discipline.  Mathematics is  a discipline.  In other words, discipline is something we need in order to master a skill.  In this case, to rightly love our God; to successfully survive the hardships of this fallen earth.  To be a good son or daughter of the living God.  Or perhaps just to successfully live out our lives on this earth.

Deut 23:5

But the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved thee.

God changed the curse of the Fall and the curse of sin into a blessing for us. He did this by making His flesh and blood to be  a curse in our place. (  Galatians 3:13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us ((for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”)) ), The gift of redemption is so precious that it was worth the agony of suffering it brought about.  How else would we ever have any clue how much the Lord God loves us?  This is a very succinct explanation of the problem of pain and suffering… The comfort and expense to God on our behalf is so very valuable that our curse becomes blessing to us.

And Deut 8:2-5

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. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.

In Deut 8:2-5, verse five gives us the key to the meaning of the verses.

Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son

The verses speak of the difficulties faced in the desert but also of the miraculous provision of God for his children in the midst of their hardship.  THUS is his discipline: the discipline of a loving father to a wayward child.  He softens the blow so that it shall not be unbearable.  Not only did they have food and drink, and clothing, but their feet did not swell. 

And the purpose of the discipline?  (and what is discipline but the pain and suffering we encounter in the world following our fall into  sin):  To humble us and to test us to see what is in our heart.

How does it humble us?  --The graces of God to us in our sin-stained undeserving state bring us low in the face of the bigness of the heart of our God toward us.

How does it test us? – God waits to see what we focus on.  The hunger? Or the manna.  The long hard trip and its difficulties?  Or the provision along the way with which the Lord blesses us.  Will we remain faithful and understand the big picture of what it is he is doing?  Do we trust him despite the apparent “unfairness “ of suffering?  Will we remain faithful and focus on his love?  Will we look beyond the pain to see the heart of God?

I hope my musings have brought you to a deeper understanding of the heart of our God.  He does not allow His children (those who have accepted the benefit of the work he did for us on the cross) to experience pain needlessly or without a blessing wrapped up in it somewhere.  It is true sometimes that we will never know the specifics of the "why" of our pain...just as God never filled Job in on the reason for his agony.  All we need to know...just all it was all Job needed to know....is the bigness of our God and the depths of his love for us, as expressed in his provisions to us in the midst of our suffering.  God wants us to look at our pain with a  faith filled heart.  A heart that says, "Yes, this hurts.  But because I know of the goodness of my God, I will not despair, but will patiently wait to see the blessings he will bring to pass through it.  I will wait, even if it is until I get to heaven, to understand the goodness of the reason behind it."