Tests, Hard Fought
Judges 3:1 & 4
Now these are the nations that the LORD left, to test Israel by them, that is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. … They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the LORD, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.
G. Michael Hopf made the profound observation about the cyclical nature of man’s rising and falling by saying, “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times.” And I can’t think of a more succinct summary for Israel’s biography ever since God first called Abram in Genesis 11 than that.
We’ve just closed the chapter on Israel’s strongest ever season, built on the backs of Israel’s most faithful generation: a generation of strong men and women who endured the hardships of wilderness wandering without complaining, who looked out across the foreign frontier littered with giants and kings and iron chariots and stone walls, yet crossed the rivers and blew their trumpets and marched their way to glory. Then, after securing their stead in the Promised Land, they toiled together in harmony with God and neighbor and nature to sow gardens and build cities and produce a prosperity for the next generation never before seen in that land. Oh, but weak men have risen up in their stead, complacent from their ignorance of battle and their lack of ever having to build something from the ground up. Their hands aren’t calloused from war or construction or righteous ceremony. Their eyes don’t know the look of ten-foot-tall warlords dressed in full armor. Their feet haven’t traveled hundreds of miles through rough terrain. Their knees aren’t bruised from days and nights of fervent praying. They’ve lived on the spoils of previous generations and the luxury has spoiled them to the core.
Friend, never forget that our Savior doesn’t test us just to make life harder, but to make us stronger. So keep that in mind during these hard times. May we rise together in the strength of the LORD, bearing with patience the scars and bruises of our earthly labor, so that at the end of days, when all generations have come and gone, Heaven will count us among the strong.