March 9

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. — Deut 8:2 BSB

When you look back on the way the Lord has led you through the years in the wilderness, can you not see how each circumstance and event arose to test what was in you? Whether it was godly fear, sincerity, a desire to honor God, or a dread of offending Him, did it reveal the life and power of true godliness? Or did it expose an empty profession, lacking the life-giving power of God?

What a mercy it is to look back and see how the Lord was with you when you would have fallen without Him. When you feel the comfort of knowing that He upheld you in the hour of trial, appeared for you in difficult circumstances, bared His right arm when you had no strength, guided you when you were lost, and brought you through when you would have been utterly lost without Him—what a mercy that is! And what a comfort it is to look back with living faith (for there must be faith in exercise) and believe that God’s grace was truly in your heart, that the Lord tested it and showed it to be genuine through every circumstance that took place.