Chastened By Grace

[Hanging Orchids, Longwood Gardens, Pa.

2009 JAVanDevender]

 Deuteronomy 8:2-6   2 "And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.  3 "So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.  4 "Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.  5 "You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you.  6 "Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.

The LORD you God allowed you to hunger, and (then) fed you with manna which you did not know....  What an incredible shift in perspective this must have required of those who went through the desert with Moses.  The Lord who loves us, who brought us out of Egypt, who delivered us from all manner of threats, who showed Himself to us at Sinai, who led us by day with a pillar of smoke, and comforted us with His presence at night by a pillar of fire...  This God ALLOWED us to hunger... so that... so that ... He could feed us in a way we have never imagined or known...  Truly this God’s ways are higher than ours, far above our thinking and imagining...  Truly we need to KNOW in our HEART that as a man chastens his son, whom he loves, so the LORD our God chastens us.

Can anything truly be added to that?  Certainly not by me.  The instruction is so clear, the application so immediate, the principle so well established... that all any of us can do is bear witness to its truth.

God’s love for us is so great that He will “allow” us to hunger just so that He can then turn around and nourish us with a new demonstration of His provision, a new perspective on His glory, a new insight into His wisdom, a new sunrise in our darkness.    Truly this is chastening by grace.  Yet when we are the ones who are hungry.... oh boy does that make it different in our minds.  Immediately we begin casting around for someone, something, to blame.  Why are YOU doing this to ME? is the question that immediately springs up in our minds even if we are ashamed to voice it with our lips.  All our vaunted wisdom and spiritual maturity crumbles around us when WE are the ones being chastened.  We don’t see it as grace... to us it is anger, spitefulness, injustice.   But then, when the manna falls and we again begin to see God’s providence at work, then and perhaps only then, do we begin to change.  Maybe only a little, maybe a whole bunch... but ... it happens. 

And we learn: our lives are not tied up in “bread alone.”  We don’t exist as objects of pampering.  Providing for every comfort in our lives would leave us stale, stagnant, decrepit and lame.  But God’s ways... now there is wisdom... are the ways of life and growth and wonder.  What a mighty God we serve.  In the words of that South which no longer exists... “who’d ‘ve ever thunk it?” 

Have you thanked God today for the chastening of His grace?   Maybe we ought to do it now.

Comments

[S.K.F.]

Could it be that the problem some of us (grown-ups) have with the chastening by the Father is that we consider chastening to be for children, and we are adults? We tend to forget that we are instructed by Jesus Himself to approach God with the perspective of children-- little children (Luke 18:17), who need parental attention in all areas of life. As we are raising our children, God views us as His children. We need to remember that He has no grandchildren!

Thanks for the "ouch" message! I took it personally--as I should.