It is my observation that God gives tests. God’s tests are tough. The goal is to pass. God’s tests come, often with no warning. Suddenly I am faced with a situation where I must make a choice or persevere in a choice where human logic and nature lead me in one direction while God’s Word leads me in another.
I’m not sure if all of God’s tests are about trust and fidelity to him, or if that is just what all of mine are. But when God tests me, again and again, it is about trusting him enough to be obedient to his Word, his Church, or someone with legitimate authority over me when my human logic cannot see how such obedience makes any sense.
When I was younger, I failed several such tests from God. As I look back on my life, I can see that every time I failed one of God’s tests I took a detour. Eventually, each time I got back on a good spiritual path, but it took a while. That makes me careful with God’s tests these days.
We can learn how to pass God’s tests by looking at the story of Abraham in today’s first reading.
Abraham’s Test
Because we live in a different context, it is almost impossible for us to put ourselves in Abraham’s place today. If we heard a voice tell us to kill our child, it would not be perceived as the voice of God. In our culture it is clearly wrong to kill a child—to deliberately harm a child. But in Abraham’s time, sacrificing a child to a god was a common practice. It was an offering of “first fruits” to a deity.
In spite of this being a common practice of the ancient peoples of the Middle East, there is no place in the Bible where Jehovah, our God, THE God, encouraged this. He eventually gave His Son for us, but he never asked us to give our sons for him.
Nonetheless, in today’s Scripture, Abraham and God have a conversation in which Abraham hears God tell him, “Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a burnt offering on a height that I will point out to you.”
Now we must remember, as surely Abraham remembered, that God had specifically given Abraham Isaac as part of the covenant of care between them. Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born. This is enough years later that Isaac could talk to his father about what was happening. Surely, Abraham must have thought, “God, you are not making any sense.”
Abraham’s Obedience
Nonetheless, Abraham was obedient. “Early the next morning Abraham saddled his donkey, took with him his son Isaac, and two of his servants as well, and with the wood that he had cut for the burnt offering, set out for the place of which God had told him.”
What was going through Abraham’s mind? We get a clue when Isaac asks his father, “Where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” Abraham answers, “God himself will provide the sheep for the burnt offering.” Surely what was in Abraham’s mind was, “God, you surely will save me from this situation!”
And God did. Just as Abraham was about to slay his child, God gave him a ram caught in nearby bushes.
It was a test. Abraham passed. God said, “Because you acted as you did in not withholding from me your beloved son, I will bless you abundantly and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore.”
Questioning God’s Goodness
Because God’s request of Abraham is so unthinkable in our culture, it takes some thinking and prayer to apply it. Yet it strikes a chord with me because it recalls for me times when I have cried out, “God, this thing you seem to be asking of me, it can’t possibly be right! Your nature is Goodness, and this does NOT SEEM TO BE GOOD.”
There was my inability to give birth to children and my husband’s death at age 47. There were smaller matters: a house that burned, family conflict, job changes, church politics, even the transitions of retirement.
In these and many daily matters, I am faced with being obedient to God’s Word or my own judgment. Obedience is not easy for me if my logic sees goodness in a different direction.
I have, with time, seen God’s goodness in every circumstance where I followed a path of trusting obedience. I have, with time, seen the dangers that awaited me when I followed my own logic and judgment.
My pastor told me once when I was facing such a circumstance. “Obedience enables you to move past the limits of your own vision and judgment.” I have thought about that many times. It is true.
God’s nature is goodness. It isn’t a goodness that is neatly tied up at the end of the hour, like a TV program. It is a goodness that manifests itself in very difficult circumstances, like the situation with Abraham and Isaac, like the situation which Jesus found himself in today’s Gospel reading. He was simply trying to do good for a paralytic, but that disturbed some observing scribes.
There are many circumstances where I can’t name God’s goodness. I do not have the mind of God. I cannot see. I cannot understand. Doubtless, many readers of today’s reflection can give circumstances where God’s goodness is questioned.
Yet doubtless many other readers can tell stories similar to the one that Abraham must have gone home to tell Sarah: how trying circumstances were one of God’s tests, an opportunity let God show how his goodness shines through in the darkest of times.
Why Does God Give Tests?
So why does God give tests? If I look at my experience, it seems that God gives a test at a transition point. God creates a circumstance that pushes my ability to trust or love or persevere according to God’s standards. The pushing of that test stretches me, pulls me, calls me, transforms me in some way.
God’s tests create a situation for me where I am like a crab shedding its shell to make room for a new one. God’s tests are times of vulnerability, of distress, of spiritual, emotional, and often physical discomfort. But, if I stay close to God and obedy, they strengthen my relationship with him, and they lead me to a new place.
Nonetheless, I admit, God’s tests are mystery, beyond my understanding. They are hard.
In the end, they are about God is God and I am not.
Prayer:
Lord, help me stay faithful to you, trusting in you, when you through life circumstances give me a test. Help me to use all the skills you have taught me to discern what is of you and what is not of you. Let me get spiritual guidance from others I can trust when I am in doubt. I trust you have forgiven me for the times I did not persevere in trusting you, but, Lord, preserve me from failing you again now. Give me the grace to pass your tests, as Jesus always did. Give me the grace to persevere, even if I find myself in a Gethsemane. Lead me, guide me, Lord. Give me the faith and courage of Abraham. Amen.
