Count it all joy

Deuteronomy 8:1-10

The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might 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, 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. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

James 1:2-4

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

I only have a few minutes this morning, so this meditation will be brief.  That is, the writing of it will be brief.  For me, the truth of these scriptures will take a long time to fully work in to my life.

When we suffer trials, it is easy to focus on the hardness of the trial.  In these passages, we have two descriptions of trials that can change our perspective.  In the first we have God explaining what he was doing with the nation of Israel during their wandering in the wilderness.  He was testing them to know whether they would follow his commands.  He was humbling them, the arrogant people that came out of Egypt with complaints on their lips every step of the way.  How was he doing it?  Simply by giving them hardship to break them and show them that they weren’t great?  Of course not, that isn’t how God works.

“And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna”.  Their pride was shown often in their longing for the food of Egypt.  God showed them that their pride was founded in the belief that man could live by bread alone.  He taught them through their hunger that man does not live by bread alone.  Further, he provided food for them in the wilderness.  He taught them in this that man does live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.  They were not being crushed, they were being humbled.  They were being changed from men and women who relied on themselves to children who relied on their Father.  Their position was being lowered.  But in this lowering, they were being exalted.  They were no longer the slaves of Pharaoh, they were no longer their own masters.  They were made the children of God.  This humbling in the wilderness was part of the discipline of God.

Discipline is an important word.  In my house growing up, discipline was often the word used to mean punishment.  You broke a rule and you were “disciplined” by being grounded.  That isn’t really what discipline means.  Discipline is teaching, it’s training.  (See the word “disciple” in there?)  God trains us to walk with Him.  He gives us exercises.  The trials we endure are exercises, building us up to walk with the Lord.

James tells us to count it joy when we suffer trials for this very reason.  The trials we endure produce steadfastness.  Later James goes on to condemn doubt in prayer.  He tells us to pray without doubting and says that he who doubts is a wavering man.  How do we walk with God without doubting?  By being steadfast.  How do we become steadfast?  By enduring trials.

I don’t have a lot to say about the end of the Deuteronomy passage, but it’s worth pointing out.  God is disciplining his children because he’s bringing them into a land where he will bless them.  Since he is going to bless them, he is also going to take the time to teach them both that they ought to walk with him and how to walk with him.  So it is for us.

I’ve been gardening lately, so I’m going to bring in a gardening metaphor here.  We often think of trials and all sorts of suffering as the weeds in the garden that will choke out the plant.  Trials, then, are evidence that God is neglecting the garden and does not actually care for us, or they're things that will try desperately to destroy our faith to determine whether the plant was strong enough to satisfy God.  But trials are not weeds.  Trials are the manure laid around the plant and worked into the soil in order to make the plant grow, to make it strong, and to make it bear fruit.

So count it joy, brothers.  The Gardener loves you.  Endure with him, and praise the Lord.