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Daily devotional · March 17

Remember the Journey

“You must carefully follow every commandment I am giving you today, so that you may live and multiply, and enter and possess the land that the LORD swore to give your fathers. Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments. He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothing did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. So know in your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you. Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, walking in His ways and fearing Him. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills; a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; a land where you will eat food without scarcity, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and whose hills are ready to be mined for copper. When you eat and are satisfied, you are to bless the LORD your God for the good land that He has given you.”
Deuteronomy 8:1-10 (BSB)Read the whole chapter →

Moses speaks to a people on the edge of the Promised Land, and he asks them to remember the forty years of wilderness. God had humbled them and let them be hungry, then fed them with manna they had never known, teaching them that people do not live by bread alone. Their clothes did not wear out, their feet did not swell. The desert had been a school, and the lesson was dependence. Moses knows that prosperity tempts us to forget, so he urges them to remember and to bless the Lord for the good land he gives. Gratitude is a discipline of memory. Today, take a few minutes to recall a hard season that, looking back, taught you to trust God. Write down two or three ways he provided for you then, and thank him for them before your next meal.

Prayer

Faithful God, help me remember how You have carried me. Make my heart thankful. Amen.

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