One thing that impressed me yesterday in the Book of Deuteronomy was God’s command to worship him in the unique way that God commanded through Moses. In 12:4 Moses commands the people not to worship the LORD in the way that other nations worship their gods.

The people of Israel were to be set apart and different than all the other nations since they were worshipers of the one true God, Yahweh. In distinguishing how he wanted to be worshipped, the LORD detailed his law to the people in the books of Leviticus and Numbers.

What was applicable to me was that God used the wilderness as his training ground for his people. He trained his people to worship him in the wilderness so that they would know how to worship him in the land of abundance.

That has significance for us today because God still uses hard times in our lives to cause us to trust and worship him in all circumstances. One of the problems that comes with the good times in our lives is that we begin to shift our trust from God to our trust in ourselves.

One of the things that I learned this summer while taking Hebrew (my wilderness) was to keep my committment to read my Bible and to pray as a way to depend on the LORD to sustain my life.

Now this principle of God using our wilderness experiences for his worship also has an eschatological parallel. You see, God is using our time on earth (the wilderness) to train us to worship him in heaven (the time of abundance).

Where are you at in life? Is this a season in the wilderness or a season in abundance? Are you seeking God in the wilderness to worship him? Are you still worshipping him in a time of abundance?