Your Faith Will Be Tested
“I just don’t feel like I’ve been tested.”
That’s what I landed on. I was telling my wife about anxiety I felt about a possible opportunity at work and in my mind the anxiety was rooted somewhere in the phrase “I just don’t feel like I’ve been tested.” The conversation moved on but in the days and weeks following I kept thinking about what I had said. “I just don’t feel like I’ve been tested.”
It bothered me because what I said cut against one of my natural leanings. I know I like to be comfortable - and only more so the older I get. I turn 40 this year and I love the rare nights we don’t have anything going on and I can change into my PJ’s and slippers by 6 PM.
But the way I had talked about being tested revealed a desire to be tested and testing is almost inherently uncomfortable. Testing is meant to push and to stress. To turn up the heat. It is uncomfortable. Why would I want that?
I wanted it because I wanted what lies beyond the testing. I wanted the confidence that would come from knowing that all of my education and training and experiences mattered when it counted. I didn’t want the test as much as I wanted to pass the test! And I don’t think it’s just me. I think most of us have some area of our lives where we desire testing. Not for the testing itself, but for the certification, the confidence, or the reward that waits on the other side of the testing. We are willing to be uncomfortable, sometimes extremely so, in order to get something of more value through the testing.
For the Christian, this desire to be tested is true of our souls before God, as well. Passages in the Bible like Psalm 26 say, “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind.” Or Psalm 139 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!”
But why would we want to be tested before God? For the same reason we want any testing. For what lies beyond the test. What lies beyond the testing of our faith? James chapter 1 tells us, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
But it gets even better. A little further down, we read, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” And there it is. How can you not only desire testing but count it all joy when you meet trials? You can if you know those trials are going to produce a steadfastness that leads to a crown of life from God himself.
There is another benefit these trials produce that’s even better than a crown of life. Just as testing in your career produces confidence in your ability to perform under pressure, so the testing of your faith produces confidence. Here’s the difference. The testing of your faith will not make you more confident in yourself. In fact, it will likely destroy your confidence in yourself. But it will grow your confidence in God.
You will learn to trust him more and you will see that your steadfastness is tied to his steadfast love, your faith to his faithfulness. The greater benefit is that you will get more of God. I mentioned Psalm 26. It says, “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind.”
The next sentence tells us why the psalmist demands to be tested. It says, “For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness.”
The exhortation is this: Set the steadfast love of the Lord before your eyes. Walk in his faithfulness. Embrace the test.
This reminds us of our need to confess our sins.
Father, forgive us for evading the tests when they come. We want comfort more than we want you. We don’t trust you to bring us through to the other side. We believe the world that tells us you will not be there. We doubt that you are who you say you are. Forgive us. Father, this is a great evil. And we know that if we in the church regard sin in our own midst, our prayers will be ineffectual, so we confess our individual sins to you now.