Tests

 Tests are a part of life. How many of us can recall clearing our desks and taking out a piece of paper and pencil to take a spelling test. The teacher called out different words and from memory we wrote them down. Later we learned mathematics and were tested on those facts. As we aged, we progressed to history tests and science tests. 

Most may remember taking a driving test. I remember mine like it was yesterday. I had to take it in my grandmother's station wagon. Not very cool. I also remember the DPS trooper dressed in full uniform getting in the passenger seat next to me to grade my driving skills. I was confident. I wanted to ace the test. I navigated parallel parking perfectly. I breezed through the rest of the test remembering to come to complete stops, use my turn signals, pay attention to other traffic in my mirrors, and not to break the speed limit. When he handed me my test, he gave me a 98. He said I did not use my turn signal early enough before parallel parking. I think he was not going to give a punk teenager a 100. 

Other tests followed through high school all leading to the climatic moment of graduation. Then, it was onto college and more tests. College tests were harder. I crammed loads of information into my cranium to regurgitate on paper for professors to grade. 

Then, came the dreaded philosophy class required for every Bible major. I heard many upper classmen complain about this class over the years. I put it off as long as I could until I was a junior. Philosophy was a two-semester class divided into Philosophy I and Philosophy II. When I finally got to the end of that second semester final exam my head was a fog of information and philosophers and their ideologies. I studied. I confess I was not prepared for the examination we were handed. One single question. It read, "Tell me everything you learned in my class over the last two semesters." That was it. We had an allotted two hours to complete the exam. 

It is the only time in my academic career it took me the entire two hours to complete an exam. I wrote fast and furiously. I expounded things I barely had any grasp of as well as things I fully understood. I wrote until my fingers cramped. I kept my nose down until I was one of the last students in the room. In honesty, looking back those were my favorite classes. I often bounded out of Dr. Roarke's lectures to share with Brenda all I learned. He taught me to really think. To think for myself. To dig deeper. He stretched my mind. I argued with him at times in class. He loved to embarrass students who did not complete their reading assignments. He did that to me on numerous occasions. I never got the chance to tell him the impact he had on me. I was surprised to learn recently he asked about me one day after I graduated to one of my friends who still was enrolled at HPU. It surprised me that he even remembered my name. I was just one of hundreds, maybe even thousands of other students he had over the years. His test was the hardest one I ever took. The hardest one until....

Until God began testing my faith. God does that. I read this morning from Genesis 22:1 about God testing Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham waited 25 years for God to fulfill His promise to give him a son through Sarah. After all of that waiting, praying, believing, and finally getting to hold his boy, years later God tested Abraham. It was a test of faith. An incident recorded in Hebrews 11. 

The word test in that Genesis 22:1 passage means to examine, prove, and try. If God knows everything, explain the purpose of Him testing us. He already knows what is inside of us as to what we believe. He already knows in advance how we will respond. There seems no purpose in the testing. There is. We have to learn firsthand to trust God and what He can do when we believe Him. The tests God has put me through have been vastly harder than Dr. Roarke's tests. 

God stretches us way past our comfort zones. He is constantly calling us further and deeper than we have been previously. It is uncomfortable. Tests are not meant to be comfortable. They are meant to examine what is really inside us. To prove what we really believe. God already knows. We don't until we are forced to choose. 

Abraham had to choose to obey or rebel. We do not read that Abraham even hesitated in unbelief. He heard God clearly and began taking steps of obedience. This inspires me. Abraham did not know the outcome. By faith he believed that if he did have to sacrifice his son that God would raise him again. 

The longer we follow God the more severe the tests become. Just when we think we can relax and get comfortable, God calls us to a new test, a fresh step of faith. I do not think those God tests ever stop. They keep coming as relentlessly as the surf on the seashores. We get through one test, catch our breath and then face another. This is not designed as punishment. It is designed to grow us and to keep our testimonies of beholding the faithfulness of God fresh. 

Abraham did not even get Isaac until he was 100 years old. Isaac was an adolescent when this next test came. Do you know what that tells me? God never quits stretching our faith even when we are old. 

My mentor and the man who introduced me to Jesus is now 68. He is a dreamer. God planted a dream in him many years ago that is beginning to take shape. It all started when Eli met another dreamer. A 91 one year old dreamer. They struck up a great friendship. The 91-year-old has been incredibly successful in business. He recognized the passionate dream that bubbled in Eli for decades.  He drew it out and challenged Eli to make the pursuit of this dream a reality in creating a new ministry called Solomon's Quest. Eli took the step of faith. He is launching this new ministry. At 68, he has certainly earned the right to slow down, to retire, to take it easy and enjoy his grandchildren. That is not what God tested Eli to do. He called Eli to pursue a dream like young men do. To trust and take steps of faith that many senior adults shy away from. Eli is chasing a 500-pound lion of a dream when others would turn and run the other way toward safety. 

Eli and Abraham fire me up. They challenge me to accept the tests of faith God puts before me. To not use age as an excuse to shrink from risky ventures into the safe comfy confines of my recliner. No, that does not honor God. Accepting God's faith tests honors Him, when there is no guarantee of success. Even when you cannot see any path forward. Trusting God by obeying and accepting His tests grows faith. It leads to extraordinary acts of God that often defies explanation except to give glory to God for His supernatural intervention. I want to live for those moments.

That is what the church needs. That is what the world longs to see. People who refuse to play it safe. Who really believe what they say. People who act on what God calls them to do. People who face the tests of faith and recount the faithfulness of God as a result. People long to see God at work in real tangible ways. 

God saw Abraham's faith. He stopped Abraham from plunging the knife into his son. God provided another sacrifice that day. Abraham believed God and God credited that belief to Abraham's account declaring him righteous. 

I see some tests of faith ahead. They are just thoughts and prayers at the moment. The day may very well come when I have to choose to put feet to my belief. Those tests are just theories in my head. One day God may call me to experiment that faith in the laboratory of life. Those experiments may be scary. They may not make sense on paper any more than Abraham sacrificing his son or Eli starting a ministry in his retirement years. Do I really have the raw courage to not only take, but to also pass the tests ahead of me for the rest of my days. I hope I do, but I am not sure. The only way I will ever know is when I have to choose to obey no matter how foolish it looks, how impossible it seems, or how outlandish it looks to those around me. I do not imagine Sarah was too fired up about this test of faith if she even knew about it. 

Like they say, the proof is in the pudding. The proof of Abraham's faith is that he put Isaac on the altar. The proof of Noah's faith is that he cut the first tree and the next until over a century later he finished the ark. What will be tangible proof of my faith? A book. A playground. Souls saved. A dynamic kingdom minded church impacting the culture around it. A miracle house. Each will bring certain tests of faith. I understand that now. The tests just foster the opportunity for God to do something amazing. May the Lord match our faith and character with His assignments. May our lives of faith glorify and hoor Him.