The LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands; He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.
Moses is reminding the new generation of something they didn't personally experience but inherited: God's faithfulness. You lacked nothing. Everything you needed was provided.
I work with people experiencing poverty and homelessness. I hear their fear constantly - what if there's no food? What if I lose my housing? What if I can't pay for medicine? The fear is not irrational. The need is real.
And I find myself wanting to point to this passage. Not to minimize their fear, but to say: God's track record is reliable. He's been faithful to His people before. He can be trusted.
But I also notice something subtle here. Moses says "you have lacked nothing." Not "you'll lack nothing" (future tense). "Have lacked" (past tense). Looking back. They can see in retrospect that their needs were met even when it didn't feel that way during the wilderness.
That's the gift of testimony. You look back after hard times and see that actually, you were sustained. The resources appeared when you needed them. You didn't see it coming, but it came.
I'm trying to help people develop a theology of trust based on looking back. Not naive faith that assumes nothing bad will happen. But grounded faith that says: God has been faithful. Even in darkness, even when I couldn't see how it would work, He sustained me. That's not a guarantee nothing hard will happen. But it's evidence that I can trust.
That's what Moses is giving his people - not promises of comfort, but evidence of faithfulness.
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