Humble Pie

This devotional was posted a while back by a woman I admire. I thought I would share it with you here:

Passage ~ Deuteronomy 8: 1-20

Key Verses ~ vs. 1-3 ~ Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.


A Promise from God ~ The Lord will bring me into a good land and I will lack nothing.

A Command to Keep ~ Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walk in His ways and revere Him.

A Timeless Principle ~ As a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. Life Application Because the children of Israel were disobedient, a journey that should have only taken 12 days took 40 years! (the COST of disobedience is high! More than 1200X as long!) They did not trust God and therefore they rebelled. But God is faithful, even in our disobedience. God can take our failures and use them to humble, test, and instruct us. Don't depend on your own abilities. The definition of HUMBLE is to be empty of pride and self-sufficiency. Often the ONLY way we become convinced of our inability is for God to REMOVE the resources and supports which we by NATURE depend upon. Sometims He uses failure to do this. Failure can reveal to us the true basic source of life which is God Himself! We must first experience hunger in order to know we need food.


Additional Supporting Scripture

2 Chronicles 7: 13-14 ~ "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.


1 Peter 5: 5-7 (my absolute favorite scripture!) ~ All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.