Click for scene from Evan Almighty
Do you remember when you were a kid they used to do that emergency testing screen on your TV?
It was the Emergency Broadcast System black and white logo on the screen and a voice-over that would say, “Do not adjust your screen. This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. In the event of an emergency you would be instructed what to do.” Then there would be a high pitched single tone for a number of seconds.
I am sure there may be many of you who are not old enough to have experienced that, but for some reason it has stuck in my mind for all these years.
It came to my mind this week again after I read some scripture on “testing”.
You see, God tests us.
Now, when you hear that “God tests us.”, I’ll be that you have a very negative perception of what that means. I know I did. We tend to think it’s the pass/fail kind of test. Somehow God delights in pointing out our deficiencies and telling us that we have failed. He writes an “F” in big red letters on our foreheads for all to see. Failures. Losers. Cast offs. Also rans. The unneeded, unnecessary, and unworthy ones. Disqualified.
That’s not true though and that’s not what God’s testing is all about.
God’s testing is meant to make us stronger; to provide us with an opportunity to choose Him. Testing can reveal those things in our heart that we need to get rid of, what we need to lay aside to journey deeper into what God has for us. Testing can also help us realize how far we have come – how we are stronger that we were previously. Or perhaps how we have not grown in strength, but have weakened.
Testing can also be a means to make us stronger. When we find ourselves in difficult situations we can whine and complain and ask God to get us out of them. Or, we can embrace the opportunity to choose to persevere under trial and grow our strength of character and faith.
Yes, we have a choice. In the midst of difficult situations we can try to gut it out in our own strength, and cry out to God to get us out of this situation. Or we can cry out to God to help us find His strength, embrace the situation and persevere in joy knowing that God is strengthening us and making us more like him.
An illustration of this is found in the movie Evan Almighty. There is a beautiful scene in the movie when Evan’s wife is leaving him because she thinks he has lost his mind believing that God has asked him to build an ark. Earlier she had prayed that God would bring their family together, and now she finds herself with exactly the opposite thing happening.
Is this scene from the movie she is in a restaurant with the kids after having left Evan to go to her parent’s house. The kids go to the washroom and God shows up as the waiter to speak to her. (Incognito of course.)
They chat a bit and then God says, “If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does He give them the opportunity to be patient? If someone prayed for courage, does God gives them courage? Or does He give them opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings? Or does He give them opportunities to love each other?”
It then dawns on her that the very thing she prayed for is being answered in the difficulties from which she is fleeing. She wants the family to be closer and love each other more, so God tests them with difficulty to find out if they will press through the difficulty to discover a deeper level of love and unity.
Wow.
What’s the lesson?
Well, the difficulty you may be resisting, and from which you may be fleeing, could be the very thing meant to “test” you, to bring you closer to God and deeper into His life and purposes for you and through you.
James 1:2-4
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Judges 3: 1,2,4
“These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan (He did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience)… They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which He had given their ancestors through Moses.”