I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and if I would have known…..
I probably would have jumped ship!
For years now, in different conversations, I have asked the question, “If God was to show you your facebook timeline of all the events to where they have lead you to your now, would you have taken the assignments that were given to you?”
And so many times, I get the popular Christian answer…. “Absolutely…. Praise the Lord!”
But then I throw the wrench in the conversation…. “What about all the messy details…. The pain, the losses, the stretching, the deaths and all the things that you didn’t want to encounter?”
Most times…. Crickets for sure!
I find myself thinking of this very thing as I go deeper into Deuteronomy 8:3, “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.”
And when I look at this portion…”that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone“ it causes me to think about God making things known that we cannot possibly learn simply by hearing about it, but living through it!
Ever lived through something?
I mean a real life circumstance?
You probably have, and I’ll allow you to fill in the blanks.
These circumstances that we see in this passage are not even close to what we deal with in this day and age, right?
I mean do we eat the things that fall from heaven?
Is there still a white substance that feeds you and I in our hardest seasons?
Or is there?
Think about “Man shall not live by bread alone…” Then what?
Here it is… the heavenly substance that we eat today to sustain us in every area of our lives is the true living Word of God. And this is one area that I have to remind myself daily to return to each and every day, so that I may live and live the abundant life.
When we are in the Word, then the instruction is very clear… if we are open to hear it.
See, the season of lean are the season of strength, and it reminds me of Paul when he tells us, “I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Philippians 4:12-13 NKJV
For years, I would only quote the latter portion of that scripture, and it worked to get my mind right in the moment with a task that seemed tough. Then there was the one day, and I can’t remember the exact day… where I felt Holy Spirit showing me to read the verses that lead up to that… and it hit me!
"I must first know the good, the bad and the ugly to really understand and comprehend the meaning of it all."
And in that season I began to be humbled by the fact that I was maturing because of the strength of His Word that kept me going in my season and seasons of manna!
These are things that I didn’t know, and truthfully… I didn’t want to know!
But in order to know the deeper life lessons of God, we must come to know what we do not know!
Jeremiah 33:1-3 says it this way…”Moreover the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time, while he was still shut up in the court of the prison, saying, “Thus says the Lord who made it, the Lord who formed it to establish it (the Lord is His name): ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’
Jeremiah 33:1-3 NKJV
“While he was still shut up in the court of the prison…” the word still lets me know that it was some serious time that Jeremiah was locked up with the homeboys! Prison was not like it is now… no tv, no cell phone, no internet access, etc. So the still is where we are at times and we want to cry all about the time that it is taking for the quail to show up!
But look at the parts that gives us hope in these seasons of “Still…” Call to Me, and I will answer you…”.
It is that simple in the times of need, and the moments that God wants to speak to us are the moments of showing you and I those things which we do not know!
This is all part of living out the humbled life.
Are these seasons easy? Not quite!
But they are enlightening and bring us to the place where God can definitely speak to us so that we can truly understand the words that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. And the only way to hear Him clearly at times is to be in this humbled living season.
I pray that this blesses you today and hopefully your humbled living will bring clarity to your life!
Have a blessed day!
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