MCLEODS, New Brunswick, April 19, 2024 – When things get bad on an individual level, most people blame other people for their problems. Similarly, when things get bad on a regional or national level, most people tend to blame the government. Very few make the long torturous perp walk to the nearest mirror to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the person staring back at them. In fact, most people bristle even at the insinuation that they might possibly be the author of their own misfortunes. For most people, it’s always someone else’s fault, but the inescapable truth is that it’s always – ALWAYS – our own fault.

There is never a time when we don’t get what we earn. Granted, God may be testing us, but his tests are meant to raise us higher than we’d otherwise aim for. God constantly spurs us to be better and better even than we think we can be, because he wants us to have the best possible life while we’re here on Earth and, more importantly, the best possible eternity when we get Home.

With hardship, you’ll know the difference between getting what you’ve earned (“the measure you mete is the measure you get in return”) and being tested, as payback and tests make very different spiritual impressions on your soul. When you get what’s coming to you, it hurts. If you’re not a believer, you’ll probably lash out and start finger-pointing; if you are a believer, hopefully you’ll humble yourself, repent, and endure whatever you’ve brought on yourself until your debt is fully paid.

Tests can also hurt, but they usually come out of the blue and when you least expect (or need) them. That’s one of their chief characteristics; think of Jesus being tempted to conjure bread after he hadn’t eaten for 40 days and nights or being tempted with untold wealth after he’d left everything behind and was living homeless, penniless, and on the brink of starvation. Our tests aren’t usually as dramatic, but besides being out of the blue and coming at a time when we least need them (when we’re weakened in some way), they’ll also come presenting a very persuasive alternative or counterargument to the godly way of dealing with the test. Think of the devil’s solutions to Jesus’ perceived problems in the wilderness or Job’s friends’ explanations and solutions for Job’s sufferings.  These “persuasions” almost always are framed as generous and selfless offers of assistance and try to convince you that your suffering is unnecessary and wrong, and that you are in fact a victim of circumstances beyond your control.

But we are, none of us, victims. Once we accept that truth and own what comes to us, whether as righteous payback or a test, we’ll do just fine because then we’ll be leaning on God for guidance and support, not on our own understanding or on someone else’s perhaps well-meaning but still misguided and ultimately back-firing and back-sliding “help”.

I had to learn all this the hard way. But God is patient and lets us make our honest mistakes in our own time, knowing that if we beat ourselves up enough, we’ll eventually knock some sense into ourselves.

Now when hard times come (and they always do, sooner or later), I stop for minute to analyze whether I had this hardship coming to me, as righteous payback, or if it’s a test. That’s the first and most important thing to determine when hardship strikes. Certainly, in either case, you humble yourself under God and endure to the end, but tests are going to require a little bit more determined endurance, since, as I mentioned, they also come with very persuasive arguments against dealing with the hardship in a godly way. This is when we really need to know our God and to stand firm in him, even if it prolongs the hardship. There is never a time when we choose God’s way that he doesn’t help us carry our load. He’s just waiting for us to ask for his help.

What about you? Did you come into this world already knowing how to deal with hardship in a godly way, or did you have to take your knocks like the rest of us and learn the hard way? Our time here on Earth is not meant to be comfortable. We’re not here either for a good time or a long time, though the devil works hard to convince us otherwise. Our allotted time here on Earth is for purging the ungodliness in us and testing our progress, with brief respites to catch our breath before the next hardship arrives.

Yet God also blesses us out of the blue in the same way a father blesses his children, both good and bad, because he just likes to see us happy. God takes no pleasure in allowing us to suffer either righteous payback or tests, but they’re part of what it means to be human. We cannot wriggle out of them as long as we’re living in time and space in a human body.

Consider whatever hardship you’re facing now and determine whether it’s righteous payback or a test, and then proceed accordingly, and always and only with God’s guidance and help.