Hey friends, here’s a provocative devotional thought by the late Bible teacher A.W. Pink that I’ve gone back to many times over the years. I’ve been thinking on it afresh in recent weeks and I hope it brings perspective and strength to you today as well:

“Ponder the incident; visualize the scene before your mind’s eye. It was not an army of men only, but a vast congregation of men, women and children, to say nothing of their baggage and herds of animals, and further advance was blocked by the river. Whatever the breadth and depth of the Jordan in recent centuries or today, it is evident that it presented an impassable obstruction in Joshua’s time—moreover, it was in flood at that particular season (Joshua 3:15): and yet they were left to gaze upon it for three days, faced with the fact that they had no means of their own for crossing it! Why? What was the Lord’s object in this? Was it not to impress Israel more deeply with a realization of their own utter helplessness? Was it not to shut them up more completely unto himself? 

And is it not that, very often, the chief design of God’s providential dealings with us? To bring us to the end of our own resources, to make us conscious of our own insufficiency, by bringing us into a situation from which we cannot extricate ourselves, confronting us with some obstacle which to human wit and might is insurmountable? By nature we are proud and self-reliant, ignorant of the fact that the arm of flesh is frail. And even when faced with difficulties, we seek to solve them by our own wisdom, or to get out of a tight corner by our own efforts. But the Lord is graciously resolved to humble us, and therefore the difficulties are increased and the corner becomes tighter, and for a season we are left to ourselves—as Israel was before the Jordan. It is not until we have duly weighed the difficulty and then discovered we have nothing of our own to place in the opposite scale, that we are really brought to realize our impotency, and turn unto him alone who can undertake for us and free us from our dilemma. But such dull scholars are we, that the lesson must be taught to us again and yet again before we actually put it into practice.”[1]

Do you agree with Pink, especially the questions I’ve italicized above? Do his insights give an accurate picture of the character of God? For example, how do his insights mesh with Ecclesiastes 8:16-17, Psalm 103: 8-14, or James 5:10-11? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

[1] Ian Murray, Life of A.W. Pink (Banner of Truth, 1981). 223.