Faith Testing

Writing a blog is turning out to be a bit more challenging than I first thought it would be, but I was willing and ready to give it a crack because it was God’s idea.

As I initially contemplated the idea, I think I saw it as an opportunity to finally feel I had a voice – that it would be like having a forum through which I would have the freedom of expressing my thoughts, and sharing my revelations, without being so bound by politeness and the rules of social courtesy that I couldn’t get a word in. You see, I had grown tired of the apparent indifference of others that often left me feeling unvalued or unimportant, and wearied of being dismayed when others have been so impatient that they dismissively interrupt or just begin to speak over the top of me.

So far, I’ve been enjoying the process, and have even found it rather cathartic. My hope has been that at least someone will read it, and ideally that they may even get something from it.

Anyway, because I’m conscious that it’s been more than 2 weeks since I last posted, I’ve been getting increasingly anxious and frustrated because I don’t seem able to finish any of the posts I’ve been working on. At least not to my satisfaction, lol. In this digital age of ‘social’ media, apparently not posting weekly, or at least regularly, is akin to digital suicide -.- That being the case, and as I’m still a blogging rookie, I’m going to beg your indulgence, and hope you’ll forgive me for the gap since my last post.

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In the meantime, I’ve been reading through the accounts of Israel’s exodus, and I’ve been particularly captivated by the part of the story where they sent 12 spies to check out the promised land. As I was looking into the actual word/s translated as ‘spies’, I also noted the recurrence of the number 40 as significant in the bible. And that led me to a quick search online, which led me to an article* that made two profound statements that resonated with me:

You see, a little while ago, I watched a movie about a Christian girl whose parents were tragically killed in a car accident. She is then sent to live with her aunt and unbelieving uncle in another town. It was a good story, but I found myself irritated by the young Christian actress playing the lead role. I found her unconvincing, because to me she seemed too sugary-sweet in her faith. I couldn’t put my finger on it back then, but I had noted the dynamic before in many other young believers. They’re all peace, love and mung beans and Jesus loves you, but they can afford to be because they live under the umbrella of their parents faith, and they’re cushioned by their church faith. They mostly live in a protected world, largely shielded from the rougher side of life and loss. And that’s why I think it irritated me, because their exposure to real life and the ugliness it can hold can be quite limited or contained. That means that their faith is largely untested, and so it lacks substance.

But what really got me thinking from the article, is about how people talk about being tested by God. The writer of the article suggests God tests his children but it isn’t always for punishment or correction, but rather to see if His children will seek God and still praise Him even in the storms of life. It sounded like she was saying God may not be disciplining you but testing to see how strong your faith and trust in Him really is. Although I can agree that the trials and tribulations of life may test us, I find it difficult to accept that God is responsible for them.

I have never felt comfortable with the idea of God testing us, because to me that makes him arbitrary. Like he’s looking at me and looking at someone else, and deciding yeah, she needs lots of trials and troubles, but the someone else doesn’t. So they get to live a good, quiet life and I get to struggle. And if that were the case, wouldn’t that make Him unjust?

If the foundation of His throne is righteousness and justice, doesn’t that mean his right to rule us is based on His being just? And how can it be just if he is picking this one to get it easy and this one to suffer? Or this one to receive healing and this one to be sick? Or this one to be saved and this one to be condemned? It just doesn’t strike me as part of his nature.

Isn’t it more reasonable to believe that it’s not a case of his allowing or disallowing stuff, but just that stuff happens because we make decisions in life? It’s not like God needs to test my faith to see how it is – I mean, what is there he doesn’t already know about me? Isn’t it more likely that I am the one that needs to see? That I am the one that needs to know what I believe? How else will my faith develop substance?

If my earlier troubles with a church had never happened, I may never have been pressed to establish exactly what the substance of my own faith was. Although I may not have directly invited all the challenges I’ve experienced into my life, somewhere along the line I, or some other person, has probably made a decision that contributed in some way.

Part of the reason I had trouble with that church was because in my enthusiasm, I decided to do as my church had trained me to do, and in doing so, I ran ahead of God. But even if I hadn’t, who is to say it still wouldn’t have gone poorly for me? Not because of a lack within me, not because I ran ahead, and not because God was setting me up, but just because people are people, and power that’s threatened or perceives itself as threatened will react to minimise or destroy that threat? The situation may have been less painful or personal, but at some point it still would have driven me to search the Word; to be sure of the foundations of my faith.

God doesn’t need to set tests for our faith, any more than we as parents would cast a critical eye over our own offspring and decide that one should get it easy and another should be subjected to trials. Life brings it’s own tests. Isn’t it more likely that when the trials of life test us that He’s rooting for us to look to and rely on Him so that we will grow?

If we, as parents, can see potential danger ahead for one of our children, then because we love them we do our best to warn them, but if they choose not to listen; choose what is not life-giving, then we’re there to pick up the pieces afterwards. In the process we hope they will learn wisdom, and that any painful consequences will reinforce the lesson. We don’t preselect them for suffering or trials, but sometimes we have to exercise the wisdom we have learned to let them experience the consequences of their own decisions. We are neither allowing nor disallowing the situations they experience – we just do our best to prepare them for life, and help them to grow through those experiences. In the end though, it’s still going to be up to each of us to decide how we will face the tests that life brings.

Trials and tribulations expose our character as well as developing our faith, but any good God can draw from our experiences in life depends on our response. Lots of people may not even realise they’ve reached a point in their lives where they have to make a decision – plenty of people turn tail and run, or stick their heads in the sand, or blindly cling to what they know because they’re too afraid to look, or crawl into some kind of chemical obliterator. Is it possible that that is how a faith becomes more vulnerable? If we don’t face a challenge when the challenge is small, then how will our faith ever rise to the challenge when the challenge is big? And every time we choose not to face a challenge, aren’t we making ourselves more vulnerable to an enemy that notes our weaknesses in order to exploit them at the next opportunity?

* https://www.womanofnoblecharacter.com/40-in-the-bible/