God humbles His called children on the way to the Kingdom because humility is essential to salvation and growth. Deuteronomy 8 shows why there is a pilgrimage: God led Israel through the wilderness, let them hunger, and fed them with manna to humble and prove them, to know what was in their hearts and to do them good at their latter end. Three times that chapter names humbling and testing. Because the stakes are eternal, God scrutinizes His people far more closely than the world, which can seem to get away with sin, and He does not let those He has called escape the consequences of unrepented sin. Humility produces submission, submission produces obedience, and obedience brings honor, as Proverbs 15:33, 18:12, and 22:4 teach, so without humility there is no eternal life. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble, and He draws near to the contrite who tremble at His word (Isaiah 66, James 4, I Peter 5). His humbling also comes through the answers He gives. He delayed coming to Lazarus for His own glory, and He refused to remove Paul's thorn so that Paul would not be puffed up, giving him sufficient strength instead. God also appoints prayer as a daily means of humbling. It makes us face His greatness and our own frailty, inadequacy, and dependence, and so destroys pride and vanity. This benefits us, since God has no need of our honor.

God humbled Israel for forty years in the wilderness to test what was in their hearts, whether they would keep His commandments. He allowed them to hunger and fed them with manna so they would know that man lives not by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord (Deuteronomy 8:1-3). Jesus quoted the same words when tempted after a forty-day fast (Matthew 4:1-4), which shows that God's purposes have not changed since Adam and Eve, so the Old Testament remains a trustworthy guide. Humbling is needed because human nature has not changed either. Jesus did not trust Himself to men, for He knew what was in man (John 2:24-25). The carnal mind is enmity against God, is not subject to His law, and cannot be, so people will not consistently obey on their own, and Israel's history went up and down, mostly down. Only with God's Spirit can the carnal mind be controlled and subdued. Humility is necessary for a relationship with God. Moses, who was very humble, more than all men on earth, waited faithfully on God and did not push Him. He believed God and acted on that faith, and God defended him against Miriam and Aaron. Such humility is meekness, which is not weakness. God humbles in order to produce faithfulness, which is love acted out through continuous obedience.

Recognizing God's sovereignty humbles us, and that humbling is meant to build us up and move us to yield our self-will. Sovereign means not subject to anything, so God is totally free, while we are subject to many things. Job, whom God called perfect and upright, was brought face to face with God's right to do anything with anyone at any time. After 83 questions he could not answer, he said, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." His flaw was not grasping that God is not subject to even a righteous man's righteousness and may use him as He sees fit, always for his good. Isaiah, seeing the Lord high and lifted up, cried, "Woe is me!" He was humbled by God's holiness yet also strengthened, knowing all things remained in God's mighty hands. This self-loathing is not psychological illness but a balanced measure of oneself against God's perfection. Humility leads to the fear of God, which is reverential awe rather than terror or faint respect, and the fear of God leads to wisdom, which is right application and so obedience. Pharaoh's irreverent "Who is the LORD?" shows that refusing to recognize God's sovereignty produces disobedience. Humbling should also yield complete resignation to God's will, thankfulness, and adoring worship. Jesus is the model, humbling Himself in conscious obedience even to death on the cross, saying "Not My will, but Yours." Such growth comes gradually over time, since God is patient.