Day 5 - Life is a test

Many years ago, a good friend asked me this question –

When you are busy around the house with hands bubbling with dish washing detergents, the food is burning on the stove, you have 15 different problems on your mind, the telephone rings, the door bell rings, your children come up and ask you 10 questions of little significance to you, dark clouds looming and you have three days’ laundry still hanging on the lines outside, what would you do?

My good friend said that would be the real moment of test!

Life is a test. God is always testing our character, faith, obedience, love, integrity and loyalty. His testing does not come when we are warned or ready. He always catches us unprepared, off-guard.

If we don’t see God’s divine hand and PURPOSE, with so many problems in hand, we can grow weary, give up, lose faith, get mad, get sad or give in. Seeing God’s purpose gives us hope to get through. What we are learning is important and an opportunity to grow. Sometimes, it is something that isn’t necessarily for us, maybe it’s for someone who is watching as we go through it…

You are relaxing at home and the phone rings and suddenly you are confronted with a call for help, or a demand for a response — and you had planned to relax and enjoy yourself all afternoon — what happens then? That’s the test.

Your neighbor or friend gets sick and somebody has to take care of the aged or the children — what do you do? These are the tests of God.

God’s views take note of the unconscious moments of our lives, the times when we are off guard. These are the times that we reveal our true colours. The test comes, not in our remembered actions, but in our unconscious reactions, our instinctive, unplanned responses.

Having said it, are we not assured that God will never allow us to face the tests greater than the grace He gives us to handle the situations?

Thank you, Father!