Introduction

Just as a reminder, chapters 6-26 take each of the ten commandments in order that they were given, and make logical and practical applications of that commandment to everyday life. And in chapters 6-11 God has been showing His people how to live out the first commandment. And interestingly, chapter 8 is a chapter about memory. So even what we remember can reflect or not reflect our keeping of the first commandment.

The forty years in the barren wilderness were almost over. The promised inheritance was now before them. And Moses in effect says, “Before you step into fullness, I want you to remember what God taught you in emptiness.”

That is not always easy. We are often tempted to forget the lessons of the wilderness once we arrive in greener pastures. For example, when we lack things in life (or are sick or being persecuted), we learn lessons of deep dependence upon God that fullness, peace, and prosperity can easily overlook. Weakness teaches prayer that strength can tempt us to ignore. So Moses says, “You shall remember.”

And actually, there are several key words in this passage: remember, humble, test, heart, son, chasten, fear, and bless. But the word ”remember,” ties them all together.

They are going to be reminded that God humbled Israel. God tested Israel. God exposed Israel’s heart. God disciplined Israel as a son. God taught Israel to fear Him. And God was bringing Israel into a land so rich that they would now have to learn how to bless Him when they were full.

But this passage is not only about Israel. It also points us to Christ.

Israel was God’s son - a son who was called out of Egypt and led into the wilderness. But Israel failed the wilderness test over and over again. They grumbled. They doubted. They demanded bread. They accused God of not being fair. They tested Him.

In stark contrast, Jesus, the true Son, was also led by the Spirit into the wilderness. He is the representative of the new Israel (the church). And when Satan tempted Him to turn stones into bread, Jesus quoted this very passage: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” So we are going to be seeing that there is a Christological element that we don't want to miss. Where Israel the son failed the test, Jesus the true Son passed with flying colors.

And now, in union with Christ, God trains us as sons and daughters. He leads us through wilderness seasons. And every one of us has some wilderness seasons. God guarantees it. He humbles us, tests us, and exposes our hearts. He teaches us dependence. He disciplines us. And He prepares us not only to survive lack of things that we think we need, but He also teaches us how to handle fullness.

So the wilderness test was not wasted pain. It was fatherly training. So let's go through each of these verses and apply them to our lives.

Obedience is essential to covenant life and fulfillment — v. 1

In verse 1, Moses begins: “Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers.”

His first point is that obedience is essential to enjoying a full life of covenant fulfillment. This does not mean that Israel earned the land by obedience. Far from it. The land was already sworn to them long before they even existed. It was covenant promise. It was covenant grace. God had already redeemed them from Egypt before He gave them the law at Sinai. Grace and covenant came first. But the enjoyment of covenant blessings is never separated from covenant obedience. But it needs to be in the right order. If you reverse the order you will end up with legalism.

So in verse 1, God is bascially saying, “Observe My commandments, that you may live.” Obedience is not the enemy of life. Obedience is the path of life. God’s commandments are not fences around a prison yard; they are guardrails along a mountain road.

Or you could think of the difference between the rules of a tyrant and the instructions of a maker. If a manufacturer gives instructions for how to successfully use a machine, those instructions aren't meant to frustrate you - even though poorly written manuals sometimes do. But the manufacturer's instructions are meant to make the machine function according its design and purpose. Or, as another illustration, if a father tells his child not to play in the street, that commandment is not anti-joy. It protects life so that joy can continue. The child may not understand that the father is trying to protect him, but it is still a gracious command.

So too, God’s law is not an obstacle to living a life of fulfillment. God’s law is the pathway to covenant fulfillment.

And I want you to notice the promised results: “that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land.” Life, fruitfulness, victory, and inheritance are connected to obedience.

So this first point is an important one because our flesh always wants fulfillment without submission. We want life without law, blessing without obedience, inheritance without reverence. But Moses says that covenant life and covenant fulfillment are found in careful obedience to the Word of God.

That is why this first verse matters for everything that follows. Israel is about to enter a rich land. The question is not merely, “Will they get in?” They will. The question is, “Will they live faithfully once they are in the land?” Possession is not the same thing as faithful enjoyment. A man can receive a fortune and actually destroy himself and his family with that fortune. You've probably seen that happen in history. A child can inherit land and ruin the inheritance. A nation can inherit liberty and squander it.

So Moses begins with obedience. God’s commandments are not obstacles to life. They are the revealed path of life.

Remembrance is essential for a life of humility — v. 2

Next verse: verse 2 says: “And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness…”

God commands them to remember. Biblical remembrance is not simply nostalgia. It is not sentimental reflection - where we live in the past and forget about the present. It is covenantal recollection that affects the present positively. It means bringing God’s works to mind in such a way that the past supports your present faithfulness. It’s not just stories that are told; it’s stories with a point.

And notice that Israel must remember “all the way.” Not just the Red Sea. Not just the victories. Not just the moments of obvious miracle. Those miracles were very cool. But they must also remember the whole road — all the way - the hunger, the thirst, the waiting, the weariness, the graves, the discipline - along with the cloud, the fire, the preservation.

One of the great dangers of prosperity is selective memory. We forget what God carried us through. We forget how weak we were. We forget how dependent we were. We forget how often we prayed when there was no other option.

A good illustration may be family stories. Many families have stories of the lean years: the years when they had almost nothing, the years when the car barely ran and the pantry was not very well stocked, and yet God provided for them in unexpected ways. The second generation was going to enjoy the fruit of those previous sacrifices, but if the story was not remembered, humility and continued dependence would be lost. Children who never hear the stories of their parents' and grandparents' hard times may assume the present abundance simply appeared. Memory prevents that and preserves humility and dependence.

Israel was not allowed to enter the land as though they had always been strong. They had to enter as a people who remembered the desert training with gratefulness. They had to remember that God “led” them all the way.

That little word “led” is important. I circled it in my Bible. The wilderness was not random. It was not an accident. It was not merely bad geography that they happened to stumble into and that God rescued them from. It was divine leadership. God led them there.

This means that the wilderness was not merely a random tough place that God somehow got them through. It was something God deliberately took them through. There is a difference. Sometimes we speak as though God merely rescues us from hard times. But Deuteronomy 8 says that there are times when God Himself leads us into hard providences in order to train us.

Why? Well, the verse goes on to say, “To humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”

The wilderness was a heart-revealer. Now, obviously the test did not inform God in the sense of giving Him data that He lacked. He was omniscient. He doesn't need any new data. But it exposed the truth of Israel’s heart in history. It revealed Israel to Israel. It showed them what was really there. We tend to be blind to our weak spots, so God reveals those to us.

And the providential tests that God brings into your life are supposed to do the same thing. Let me give a couple illustrations that might help. A pressure test on a pipe does not create the weak spot in the pipe; it reveals it. In the same way, a difficult season you have gone through does not create your impatience, anger, or fear. It's a pressure test that reveals what was already in the heart that needs to be dealt with. And once God exposes the sin in your heart, you need to thankfully bring that weak spot to His grace to be fixed.

That is humbling. But it is also merciful. It is better for the heart to be exposed in the wilderness, where God is training us, than for it to remain hidden until prosperity actually magnifies the corruption and allows it to get worse.

So remembrance is essential for humility. The person who remembers God’s leading, God’s testing, and God’s mercy, cannot boast as though he carried himself. He remains dependent on God during the times of prosperity. That's essential for maintaining prosperity in a way that pleases God.

Humility is essential for depending on God’s Word and provision — vv. 3–4

So verse 3 logically makes this exact connection. It says, “So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know…”

God humbled them by allowing hunger. It was not simply an inconvenience that God somehow overlooked. No. He allowed them to feel real need. And by the way, Jesus felt real need in the wilderness when He was tested. The text says He was hungry. That was not an illusion. He had real need. But Jesus waited for God's timing to have His need fulfilled, and faithfully depended on God in the meantime.

In any case, God fed them with manna once the test had been experienced. God could have prevented the hunger. But He very deliberately did not. He could have made the wilderness lush. He could have stocked the desert with ordinary bread. He could have arranged the journey so that Israel never felt deprivation. But He did not. He allowed hunger before He gave the manna.

Why? Because He was teaching them that life does not rest ultimately on visible supplies. Life rests on God.

Manna was not merely food. You can sort of think of manna as theology in edible form. Every morning, Israel woke up to a lesson: “You are alive today only because God speaks, God gives, God sustains, God provides.”

They could not store it up in unbelief. You might remember that those who tried to store the manna up (just in case God didn’t come through), had their manna spoil. God was teaching them dependence. They could not control tomorrow’s supply when they were being trained in the wilderness. They could not manufacture it. They could not explain it. They had to receive it daily from God’s hand. Those were lessons teaching dependence.

This is why Moses says: “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.”

This does not mean that bread is unnecessary. No. God gave them bread. It means bread is not ultimate. Bread is a creature. God is the Creator. Bread has no power to sustain us unless God gives it that power. Ordinary means are real, but they are never independent.

Let me use an illustration. A child may think the faucet gives water. After all, he turns the handle, and water comes out. But the faucet is only the visible outlet. Behind it are pipes, pressure, reservoirs, rain, and ultimately God’s providence. So too, we are tempted to think our paycheck feeds us, our planning protects us, our medicine heals us, and our strength sustains us. But those are faucets. God is the reservoir behind those faucets. And the moment we forget God in the equation, we have turned the medicine into a god (and have violated the first commandment). When you take medicine, do so prayerfully. God can heal you with means or without means. And that medicine will do you no good if God does not bless it.

Israel had to learn this in the wilderness because the ordinary faucets were almost completely removed. There were no fields. No bakeries. No granaries. No rivers that they could easily access. God stripped away ordinary supports so that Israel would see the true Support (capital S) beneath all supports - God.

Verse 4 adds: “Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years.”

This is a quieter kind of provision from God. Clothing and sandals lasting is an ordinary kind of provision. Manna was spectacular. It was obvious. But preserved clothing and unswollen feet can very easily be overlooked - and not make us have hearts that well up in thankfulness to God. From the history we know that many of these Israelites did not wake up each morning saying in thankfulness, “Wow! Another day, and my robe has not disintegrated!” Yet that too was God’s provision. Those of you who still have your original teeth in old age (like my mother has at 101 years old) have a similar provision from God's hand. Have you thanked God for your teeth? My mother does. The point is that we can't take anything in life for granted. There could be a war tomorrow where God takes away our houses, food, livelihood, and other things that we have taken for granted.

Some mercies (like the manna) are very dramatic. That was a miracle. Others are ordinary preservation of things that simply keep working - like their clothing and sandals did. The car starts again. I'm very thankful for my old rustbucket Suburban that just keeps going - very thankful. I'm thankful that my body keeps going despite its issues. I'm thankful that my roof is not leaking. The shoes last. The congregation continues. The mind still works. The family is sustained. The bills are paid. The feet do not swell. I try not to take any of those things for granted.

We often notice what God has not yet given, and sadly , that sometimes makes our hearts grumble and be even more unthankful. But it's even a problem when we are slower to notice what He has quietly preserved. And the reason God has included these verses in this section is that keeping the first commandment involves noticing and being thankful. Many in that first generation failed this test. Most in this second generation passed it.

Humility teaches us to depend on both God’s Word and God’s provision. We live by the Word from His mouth, and every ordinary provision is dependent on His Word. A simple word from His mouth and we could lose those provisions.

This is exactly where Jesus stood in Matthew 4. He was hungry in the wilderness. Satan said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” In other words, “Use Your Sonship to escape from the limitations of human dependence. Use Your power to avoid waiting. Meet Your own need apart from the Father’s command.”

And Jesus answered with Deuteronomy 8:3. He would not live by bread alone. He would live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

The previous generation grasped for bread and grumbled. They thought that they deserved better from God's hand. Jesus trusted the Father and obeyed. Israel failed the wilderness test. Jesus passed it.

And in union with Christ, we are called to learn that same dependence. Not a passive laziness. Not a refusal to use means. That would be irresponsible. We are supposed to faithfully use the means that God has given us. But He also wants us to have a deep conviction that no means (such as medicine, money, weapons, etc) can sustain us apart from the words of blessing that proceed from God's mouth.

Fatherly discipline is essential for reverent sonship — vv. 5–6

Verse 5 gives the interpretation of the whole wilderness: “You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you.”

This is one of the tenderest verses in the chapter. The wilderness was discipline, but not the discipline of a judge condemning a criminal. It was the discipline of a father training a son. And that distinction is crucial.

A stranger may see a father correcting his child and only notice the pain or the restriction - and shake his head at the parent, and wonder what's going on. He doesn't see the whole picture. He doesn't see that the father has a good goal for his discipline. The father is not trying to destroy the child’s joy. He is training the child for maturity. In fact, that child would likely grow up to be a joyless spoiled brat who lacks self-discipline if he is not disciplined by his parents. A good father says "No" because he loves his child. He corrects because he sees potential danger. He disciplines because he wants the child to grow into wisdom.

So Moses says that Israel must interpret the wilderness through the eyes of God's fatherhood. The hardship was not proof that God had abandoned them. It was proof that God was training them.

This is hard for us. When God humbles us, we often misinterpret His difficult providence as rejection or lack of love. When He denies us something, we assume He is against us. In doing that, we are acting like spoiled children who don’t trust their parents. When He exposes our weakness, we think He is humiliating us for harm. But Deuteronomy 8 says: “Know in your heart.” This is something we must settle deeply: God disciplines His people as sons.

That phrase “know in your heart” is important because it is possible to know fatherly discipline as a doctrinal truth without really knowing it and believing it in the heart. When the pain comes, your theology gets tested. Do you really believe that this tough providence that you are going through is a providence from a Father who loves you? Be honest with yourselves. How does your heart react to God's tough providences? Do you really believe God is for you during those circumstances? Or do you get bitter? Do you really believe His discipline is purposeful? This phrase is challenging us to line our hearts up with what we intellectually know to be true. We need to sanctify not just our outward behavior, but also our hearts and even our emotional responses. We saw one dimension of the sanctification of our emotions in the sermon on fear. So yes, even our emotions need to be sanctified.

Verse 6 continues: “Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.”

Fatherly discipline should produce obedient, reverent, respectful, honoring sonship. God is not satisfied with resentful and grumpy obedience. Neither should parents. Your work as parents is not done if your children only give you grumpy obedience. A wise son does not despise correction. He knows that his father’s discipline is loving, but he also knows it is serious.

This is where modern sentimentalism about sonship can be dangerous. Some people hear “sonship” and think only of hugs, and wrestling with dad in the grass, and comfort, acceptance, intimacy, and privilege. All of those are real and they are important. We truly are sons and He sheds His love abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. He wants us to know intimacy with Him. But biblical sonship also includes chastening, obedience, walking in the Father’s ways, and fearing Him. That's all consistent with the love of the Father.

Sadly, many people who have never experienced Biblical parenting from their parents, misinterpret God's parenting in negative ways. But Hebrews chapter 12 says that God’s discipline is proof of our sonship, not proof against it. That passage indicates that if you have never received any discipline from God for your sins, the likelihood is that you are not yet His child. Illegitimate children may be left to themselves, but sons are trained. God is a good parent. So don't see the painful providences you go through as evidence of God's lack of love for you. It is the very opposite. It proves that He loves you. I can anticipate that some of you will come up with all kinds of objections in your mind of why this can’t be true- because of abuse and other difficult things that you have experienced. And you can talk to me about that. But God is sovereign. He makes no mistakes.

Let me use another illustration: A coach who never corrects the players on his team is not a very good coach. Now, the corrections and discipline of a good coach may be uncomfortable, but a good coach still gives them. True, the bad coach you may not hate you, but he is not really treating you as if you are on a winning team. A coach who sees promise in you corrects your form again and again. A music teacher might stop you on the same measure ten times because she knows you can play it better. Right? A father corrects the child he loves because he is aiming at maturity.

God’s correction is never arbitrary. It is never petty. It is never cruel. It is fatherly discipline designed to produce reverent sonship. And some of you may need to adjust your parenting to conform to God's perfect parenting.

So when God leads us through humbling providences, we should ask more than, “How can I get out of this?” That can be an appropriate question. If a criminal is treating you in a criminal way, the Bible itself tells you that you should not put up with his evil. Learning how to resist that criminal Biblically is part of God training your maturity. God had Israel fighting criminal tribes in the wilderness. They were not passive. And in the same way, God may have allowed you to be robbed because He is teaching you how to resist that evil and not be overcome by it. And certainly you can protect yourself in that moment. But an additional thought, that is also appropriate, is to ask, “Father, what are You training in me? I know you are sovereign over even this evil criminal. And I want to grow through this experience. What unbelief are You exposing in me? What obedience are You forming in me? What fear of the Lord are You deepening?” The first commandment logically demands such self-evaluation questions.

Recognizing the Father’s goodness is essential for appreciating our inheritance — vv. 7–9

OK. Moving on - after speaking of wilderness discipline, Moses turns to the land that they can see in front of them: “For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land…”

This raises a very important point. The disciplines of the wilderness are not everything that a father does. The wilderness was not the destination. Discipline was not the end. Humbling was not the final word. God was bringing them somewhere good through those testings.

The Father who chastens also gives good things and an eventual inheritance.

And Moses lingers over the goodness of that inheritance. It is “a good land.” Then he piles up images:

• “A land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; • a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates; • a land of olive oil and honey; • a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; • a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper.”

This is such a beautiful description. After the dryness of the wilderness, there will be brooks, fountains, and springs. After manna, there will be wheat and barley. After scarcity, there will be bread without scarcity. After dependence in a barren place, there will be orchards, vineyards, oil, honey, minerals, and abundance.

I could park on those verses for a long time, but I won't this morning. I'll park on those issues in the next sermon. But the point is that those are the things that are easy for us to look forward to.

But I will at least introduce some of next week's message because these verses do. First, God is not anti-material - as gnostics falsely claim. God made the land. He made wheat and barley. He made vines and figs and pomegranates. He made olive oil and honey. He put iron in the stones and copper in the hills that could be mined. The physical goodness of creation is not an embarrassment to spirituality. It is part of the Father’s generosity. So don't be embarrassed if God has enriched you more than He has enriched others. There is nothing wrong with wealth or other material blessings - especially if your heart is prepared to handle them.

But Israel must not look at the land as an independent wealth. That's the point. They must not treat the inheritance as raw material for self-exaltation. They must recognize the Father’s goodness in it.

There is a difference between 1) receiving a gift and 2) appreciating the giver through the gift. You’ve all seen this. A child can tear open presents at a birthday party and hardly look at the one who gave the gift. The gift is enjoyed, but the giver is ignored. You know what that feels like, right? We look at that and realize, "That's not right. That child needs to be trained in gratitude." Yet that is exactly how sinners often handle God’s world. We enjoy food, shelter, beauty, land, wealth, opportunity, cars, family, church, health, skill, and success — but we do not gratefully trace them back to the Father’s hand. And let me tell you something-No matter how hard life is, there should not be a day that goes by where our hearts do not well up in thankfulness to God for His goodness to us - goodness that so many others are blind to. If Job could praise God even after his losses, we need to do so as well.

Moses is training Israel to see the land in a God-centered way - as a visible gift that points beyond itself to the Giver. The brooks preach. The wheat preaches. The figs preach. The iron preaches. The copper preaches. They all say, “Your Father is good.”

This is especially powerful after verse 5. The same Father who chastened them in the wilderness is bringing them into a good land. If they only look at the hardship, they may think that He is harsh. If they only look at the abundance, they may become spoiled. They must see both together: the Father disciplines, and the Father gives.

The wilderness proves His wisdom. The land proves His generosity. Both prove His fatherhood.

So recognizing the Father’s goodness is essential for appreciating inheritance. Otherwise inheritance becomes entitlement. It really does. Blessing then becomes fuel for pride. And God hates pride. Prosperity becomes spiritually dangerous. And Lord willing, we will look at that next time.

Blessing God for our inheritance is essential to passing the next test — v. 10

Verse 10 says: “When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.”

This verse is a hinge to the next section. It concludes the first half of the chapter, but it also prepares for the second half. Verses 1–10 deal largely with the wilderness test. Verses 11–20 will deal largely with the prosperity test.

The wilderness tested Israel through lack. The land would test Israel through fullness.

And quite honestly - fullness can often be the more dangerous test. Think about it: • Hunger can make us cry out to God. That's good. Fullness can make us forget Him. That's bad. • Weakness can drive us to prayer. Strength can make us self-confident. • Scarcity can expose our need. Abundance can hide our need - need that we still have.

So Moses says, “When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the LORD.”

Do not merely enjoy the meal. Bless the Lord for the meal. Do not merely possess a house and its land. Bless the Lord for the provision of house and land. Do not merely receive the inheritance. Honor the Giver of the inheritance.

A good illustration here might be the difference between a thank-you note and a receipt. A receipt says, “This is mine because I paid for it. Yes, I'm glad that there was a store that I could buy it from, but I paid for it.” A thank-you note says, “This came to me through another’s kindness.” The proud heart treats life like a receipt. The grateful heart treats life like a thank-you note.

Verse 10 teaches us to turn fullness into a thank you note; into worship. Gratitude is one of the chief protections against pride. Blessing God is how we keep blessing from becoming an idol.

This is why ordinary habits of thanksgiving matter. Giving thanks before meals, after meals, in family worship, in public worship, in testimony, in prayer — these are not empty rituals when they are done in faith. They are warfare against forgetfulness.

Israel needed to learn this because the next danger was already quickly approaching. Once they had houses, fields, vineyards, herds, silver, gold, and security, they would be tempted to say, “My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.” Well, that's jumping ahead to verse 17. But verse 10 gives the antidote before the disease appears: “Bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.”

So there are two tests. There is the wilderness test: Will you trust God when you are hungry? And there is the prosperity test: Will you remember God when you are full?

Christ passed both tests. • In hunger, He trusted the Father’s Word. In glory, He has never ceased to honor the Father. He has inherited the entire universe. Jesus has everything. Yet He has never ceased to honor and glorify the Father. • In humiliation, He obeyed. In exaltation, He receives all things as the obedient Son and brings many sons to glory. He’s training us to enjoy that same glory faithfully. He is preparing you now to handle the glories of the future like Jesus does.

So right now you are being trained to pass both tests as well. • When God humbles us, we learn dependence. And we learn to see that He can provide for us. • When God blesses us, we learn gratitude. • When He disciplines us, we learn reverent sonship. • When He gives inheritance, we learn to bless His name.

Conclusion

So, in conclusion, the main lesson of these first ten verses is about how to interpret the wilderness times that we have gone through (or are presently going through). Your wilderness may be your health issues.

The wilderness was not wasted. It was not random. It was not proof that God had forgotten them. For God’s covenant people, our wildernesses are God's fatherly training. So, to review where we've been:

1. First, God commands obedience because His law is the pathway to a life of fulfillment. It prepares us for fulfillment.
2. Second, God commands remembrance because forgetfulness breeds pride.
3. Third, God humbles us because humility teaches dependence.
4. Fourth, God disciplines us because we are sons. Don't ever interpret the tough times as an indication that the Father does not love you. God disciplines us because we are sons.
5. Fifth, God brings us into an inheritance because He is good.
6. Sixth, God teaches us to bless Him because gratitude protects us when we go through the next test (that we will look at when we go through verses 11-20).

And above all, this passage points us to Jesus Christ. Israel failed as God’s son in the wilderness. Jesus passed as the true Son. He lived by every word from the Father’s mouth. He obeyed in hunger. He trusted in weakness. He endured discipline. He secured the inheritance. And Jesus has promised you the grace to be able to do the same.

So do not despise the wilderness. And do not waste it. Do not be a slow learner. (Some people are very slow learners!) Do not misinterpret your wilderness experience. Remember it. Learn from it. Let it humble you. Let it teach you dependence. Let it train you as a son. And when God answers your prayer and brings you into fullness (which He loves to do when you are ready), bless the Lord your God for the good land He has given you.

Amen.