Why would an all-powerful Being humble and test His people? Humbling doesn’t sound very fun, especially in our day and age, when humility is not a value that’s highly prized. Usually, people value confidence—their belief in themselves. Yes, confidence in a right way has its place, but a far more important value is humility.
We understand that part of God’s program is to get the leaven out of our character, to help us become a little less puffed up with each passing year—a little less quick to judge others, a little less quick to react when we’re offended, a little less quick to assume someone is out to get us. But do we appreciate why He wants to humble us? Is God playing with human beings in the way that a five-year-old might play with a bug on the concrete, poking at it just to see what it will do?
Not at all! God has a purpose for us, and to achieve that purpose He humbles us and tests us for our greater good. Testing may not sound very fun, but we are tested for a wonderful purpose. When we were in school, our teachers would give us tests from time to time. Some were difficult, but we don’t think our teachers were testing us because they hated us—they knew we needed to be tested to show that we had mastery of the subject. And we know that when we were tested, it was for our good. Testing shows us what we’ve learned. How many of us would want to drive over a bridge that was designed, built, and overseen by someone who had read the book but had never taken any tests in engineering school? I’d want to know that the engineer had been rigorously tested—that he’d retained more than book learning, that he knew how to apply what he had learned.
As we enter this special time of examining our lives, let’s also examine why God humbles and tests His people—so that we can develop a greater understanding of why trials are an integral part of the Christian life.
Humbled in the Wilderness
The Israelites’ 40 years in the wilderness were a time of testing and trial. God humbled them and allowed them to be tested for a purpose. Let’s remember what the ancient Israelites went through:
And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 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 (Deuteronomy 8:2–3).
Notice that God allowed the Israelites to hunger, but He didn’t let them starve. They may not have had the exact kinds of food they wanted, but they had what they needed. God was taking care of them through their trial. He wanted the Israelites to learn some really deep spiritual lessons from the physical events that were happening around them. The manna falling from the sky was meant to help them understand that God was taking care of them. He was their Father. He was their Guide. He was their Protector. He was with them—He would never leave them or forsake them.
And the manna itself had to do with obeying God. Consider how God’s provision of the manna is first explained. The Israelites had just come out of Egypt, and we read:
Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not” (Exodus 16:2–4).
God was testing them: Would they gather the manna every day? Would they refrain from storing extra for the next morning? You know what happened when they tried to store extra—it bred worms and stank. Would they try to gather manna on the Sabbath? Some tried, but there was no manna to be found. God was teaching His people to follow His directions. It wasn’t just about some food. God was saying, in effect, It’s not about the physical thing I’m providing for you. I’m trying to show you who I am. I’m trying to show you what I’m doing in your life. And I am the one you should have your eyes on. The metaphor was powerful—this was bread falling out of the sky from God. Yet they didn’t understand.
Let’s get a little context about this manna. What was this awful food God was feeding the Israelites, and why were they so distressed? “Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: ‘Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes’” (Numbers 11:4–6).
It’s amazing how easily we can come to take blessings for granted. The Israelites lamented having nothing to eat—except for bread that miraculously fell out of the sky six days a week, without fail, and twice as much on Friday so they wouldn’t have to collect food on the Sabbath. And how is it described? “Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its color like the color of bdellium. The people went about and gathered it, ground it on millstones or beat it in the mortar, cooked it in pans, and made cakes of it; and its taste was like the taste of pastry prepared with oil. And when the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna fell on it” (Numbers 11:7–9).
For a people wandering in the wilderness, that sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? And it was food coming down from the heavens—it was miraculous. Yet it wasn’t exactly what the Israelites wanted, so they came to despise it.
What about us, today? When God is taking care of us, sometimes it’s in ways we don’t want. Sometimes it’s in ways we don’t value. Yet God is providing our needs.
What Is in Our Heart?
Do we have a better perspective than that of the Israelites? Or do we sometimes think, God, this is not the way I envisioned my life. This trial I’m in, this test I’m facing—this is not what I signed up for. This is not what I want. I’m not having a whole lot of fun right now. Looking back, we see that God was guiding the Israelites through their lives as He humbled and tested them. He knew what was best. He takes care of us, too—but it’s not always in the way we expect or even want. And if we’re not careful, the care we didn’t envision can become so overwhelming that we forget everything He is doing for us, whatever the issue may be—maybe personal problems or relationship challenges, or maybe financial difficulties. Maybe our budget runs out before the month does, and it’s distressing. Maybe we’re sick and struggling—maybe chronically, maybe seriously. And it’s easy for one trial to become so overwhelming that we forget everything else that God is doing for us.
God wants to know what is in our heart. And that’s exactly how He was working with the Israelites as they came out of Egypt. But, for us, the stakes are even higher. God is preparing to give us eternal life, and He wants to see what we are going to do with it. He doesn’t want to give eternal life to individuals who’ll stage a rebellion, as Lucifer did. He’s never again going to allow that to happen.
As we prepare for the Passover, we should reflect on this. We should ask ourselves, Where do I stand when it comes to the Ten Commandments? Am I breaking any of them in the letter? Am I breaking any of them in the spirit? This should be on our mind, too, when we keep the Days of Unleavened Bread. God is training and testing us—running us through our drills, like any team that has drills and practices—because He wants to know what’s in our heart. And it is just as important that we, too, know what’s in our heart. Our tests help us see where we are growing and where we still need to grow much more.
And we must be honest with ourselves. Oftentimes, our heart can be self-deceiving. Take the example of being in school. We can think, Oh yeah, I know all this material. I’ve been studying this. I’ve got it. Then the test comes, and we think, Whoa, I really missed that one, didn’t I? And maybe we hope the teacher will let us take the test again. We can see in our own lives that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings” (Jeremiah 17:9–10).
By ourselves, we are not capable of doing what we need to do. We need God’s help. We need Him to live in us, because we are incapable of guiding our lives on our own. God tests us so we will recognize this—both that we still need to improve and that we can have confidence that, mistakes aside, we are on the right track. God is refining us, like metals are purified when refined—making us purer.
The Days of Unleavened Bread remind us of what God is doing. The Passover reminds us that our Savior was willing to sacrifice Himself for us, even when He didn’t deserve death. He was willing to humble Himself, though He didn’t need to be refined or purified: “Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:22–24).
How grateful we should be that our Elder Brother was willing to lay down His life for us! And we read of the lesson we should take from that: “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). We are humbled because Christ was humbled. Christ was willing to let Himself be humbled, and humbling is good for us as well.
Feeding on Christ
What we eat eventually comes out of us, and whatever is in our heart is also going to come out—out of our mouth or in our actions. “Whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods” (Mark 7:18–19).
The world’s false Christianity often takes this statement wrongly, misunderstanding that it has to do with eating unclean foods. But notice the rest of Christ’s statement. “And He said, ‘What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man’” (Mark 7:20–23).
This is exactly what Christ—the God of the Old Testament—was teaching the Israelites when He tested them with His gift of manna. He wanted them to understand its spiritual intent. But the ancient Israelites didn’t get it, and the Jews in Jesus’ day still didn’t get it. We read:
Therefore they said to Him, “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:30–33).
How ironic—He was the one who had given that bread to their fathers, yet they were rejecting Him just as their fathers had. And that’s the lesson for us, as well: It’s not ultimately about the physical bread we eat, but about the One who is providing it. That was the spiritual lesson. Christ told them:
“I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:51–56).
The intent was for Christ to live in them, and the intent is for Christ to live in us. That’s the lesson. “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me” (v. 57).
Brethren, are we feeding on Christ? It can be so easy, when we come to the end of the Days of Unleavened Bread, to think, I’ve been keeping the Days of Unleavened Bread—when all we have really done is go without puffy bread, and now, when we’re done eating flatbread, we eat puffy bread again. But the lesson God has for us is so much more. It’s not just doing what He says—it’s actually letting Him live in us.
Christ was totally without sin, as pictured by the unleavened bread we eat—totally deflated and humbled. There was no self-will or selfishness in Him at all. That’s our Savior. “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). This should put our own humbling and testing into a very different perspective.
We Are Not Alone
In the context of the Days of Unleavened Bread, the Apostle Paul reminded the Corinthian brethren of what the ancient Israelites went through. “Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Corinthians 10:1–2). Remember, the Last Day of Unleavened Bread would have been the time when the ancient Israelites came through the Red Sea through God’s miraculous intervention. And Christ was with them at that time. “All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ” (v. 4).
Yet God was not pleased with most of the Israelites. Paul goes on to list some of the traps, some of the sins, and some of the mishaps that happened as they wandered through the wilderness. And all of those same spiritual traps are around us now. Today, as we are walking through our wilderness—as we are walking through a very, very dangerous world—God is still with us. “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (vv. 12–13).
Yes, whatever we face, Christ is with us. He will face our trials with us—because He is in us as we are humbled, as we are tested. So, if we only focus on the physical during the Days of Unleavened Bread, and we’re not in tune with asking Christ to live in us—to change us, to teach us, to humble us in gentleness—then what will it really mean? Let’s make sure that we are responding to His presence in our lives. We must be spiritually unleavened, not just eating physical flatbread.
Paul told the Corinthian brethren, “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:6–8).
The Corinthians had neglected the lesson of the Days of Unleavened Bread. They were arrogant, not humbled. Though Christ’s sacrifice had allowed them to become spiritually unleavened, their behavior didn’t match. Let’s not make that mistake in our own lives!
God’s Loving Plan for Us
I hope we can appreciate how God humbles and tests us not because He hates us, but because of just how much He loves us. Any parent should be able to understand. “You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you” (Deuteronomy 8:5). The same One who chastens us is the One who gave His life for those He chastens. He made that sacrifice because of His love for us, and that’s the same love that motivates Him to humble and test us today. He will never forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).
In Hebrews 12:5–7, Paul wrote to brethren who had forgotten that lesson: “You have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?’”
God is working to do good in our lives. He gives us circumstances to bring about the best in the end. When we ask Him for the blessings we think are best for us—intervention in our trials, or healing from what ails us—we want them to come immediately. And, often, they do. But sometimes we must wait, even for a long, long time. God isn’t just trying to smooth the bumps in our daily lives—He is preparing us for places in His Kingdom, a whole new level of existence for us in the God Family, where we will do amazing things and enjoy amazing fellowship. We are heirs to a glorious Kingdom.
We read that God’s Holy Spirit “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we also may be glorified together. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:16–18).
God has a plan for the world in general, and He also has a specific plan for your life and mine. The Days of Unleavened Bread represent our lives—times of trials, humbling, and testing, along with times of joy and blessings. And even our tests and trials are a kind of blessing.
God intervenes in our lives for our good. That’s true when He answers our prayers, and it’s true when He humbles and tests us. The longer we live, the more we should see this. He has our very best interests at heart. He helps us—even in spite of ourselves—blesses us, and takes care of us, just as He took care of the ancient Israelites: “who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end” (Deuteronomy 8:16).
So, let’s be grateful for what He is doing in our lives. Let’s be grateful for what the Days of Unleavened Bread teach us. Let’s be grateful that at the end of our race, as we enter life with God forever, we will be able to look back with perfect understanding on the times when He said, I am working with you to humble and to test you.