Tests

Tests come in all shapes, sizes, forms and even people. Academic tests would qualify as tests. I remember once in my freshman year of high school our math teacher handed us all a test. I looked at it and was very puzzled. I didn't recognize anything. At first I thought maybe I had walked into the wrong class. Then I rememberd just a few moments earlier our teacher had taken roll call. My name was called. Either I was an imposter, or I had somehow managed to sit through class for several weeks without so much as learning a single thing. Unfortunately, it was the latter and not the former. So I got up, handed him the test and walked out of class. In that situation, I guess you could say I "failed" the test.

Sometimes a test will come in the form of a child. Say the kid disobeys you. Repeatedly. Then as you fetch your friendly wooden spoon out of the baking implements drawer, the aforementioned child -- who is very athletic -- runs up into his room and shuts the door and locks it. (Editor's note: Don't mention that Eli does those types of things. Author's reply: I won't. I wouldn't want to embarrass him.) In that situation, the test might be after not being able to find a key to the door, not losing your temper and taking a few steps back and crashing into the door, then through the door, like a crazed, steroid-fueled linebacker. That may not be the proper way to handle that test of a 4-year-old whose immature actions include fleeing the scene of his crimes and managing to make it upstairs to the safety of his room to avoid "facing the music." To handle the test, keep your cool. You are the adult after all.

Other tests come in the form of trusting God in financial situations. Or, um, let's see...oh! Here's a good one. Let's say, hypothetically speaking, God took you all the way across this great country to go to a school of ministry for a year. And before you left your good job, your comfortable home, your friends and everything else, you felt the Lord promise you that you'll get your job back when you get back home based on a portion of Scripture in II Kings about the Shunamite woman. But then in the course of that year the company you work for goes bankrupt. They start laying people off like crazy. They impose a hiring freeze. But you head back anyways after finishing the schooling, even though your job isn't guaranteed. You start to think you're crazy and that maybe you should be looking a little harder for a job (kind of a "Plan B" type of thing). But then on the drive home, let's say you're in Tennessee a day away from home, your boss calls and says congratulations it's Christmas and your birthday all in one because you're getting your job back. That situation, trusting the Lord when it seems by the world's standards that it's a pretty ridiculous thing to do, that's called a "test." Lord willing, you'll pass that test.

And then there's pregnancy tests. Let's say, hypothetically speaking, you've had 12 kids. And you're youngest is, oh, 15 months old. And you start to feel a little funny. You've been losing weight by dieting and exercising and then one day you're not losing weight anymore. And you just feel a little off. So you take a pregnancy test. How do you think that would turn out?