Photo: Martin RussellPastor Martin Russell
Assistant to the Bishop
Nebraska Synod, ELCA

Tests… none of us like them no matter when and in what form they come.

I remember taking my ACT test on a Saturday morning. Poised with sharpened Number 2 pencils in hand, I remember my anxiety being elevated as we were told, “This is THE MOST IMPORTANT TEST OF YOUR LIFE!”

The arrival of graduation announcements in my mailbox reminds me that many high school and college students are preparing for their final examinations as their anticipated graduation approaches. Life is filled with tests. Tests come in the form of job interviews and applications for college. They come as challenges to measure our strength of character and faith. Tests can be temptations that lie in wait to pounce on us in our weakness. Tests can also be a measure of our strength or a way that we can see for ourselves that we have learned an important lesson. Tests that teachers give measure, in part, their skill as a teacher. Great obstacles and stresses test relationships.

We have plenty of tests to deal with in our lives without considering a God who tests. We would like to think that God does not do such things because there is always the real possibility of failure… so why would God set us up for failure? To assume that we can read the mind of God and provide answers for one another about whether or not or why God tests us is to walk in dangerous territory. There is a mystery to God’s ways that is and will always be beyond us. The issue is not why God tests us. The issue is: Do we trust God?

Our answer on any given day to that question may be different. Do we trust God? The difference between yes and no is in how much we know God to be trustworthy. We know God by talking with Him, reading God’s Word, loving and serving God’s people, and worshipping God. When the tests and the trials of this life happen we will be less inclined to ask who is doing this to us or why… and are more likely to know how we will get through it – by trusting the God we know to be trustworthy.

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