MCLEODS, New Brunswick, May 20, 2024 – In the work I used to do, I would help my clients prepare for their medical board certification exam, which they took at the end of their clinical residency. These exams were exhaustive and multi-day ordeals, but the examinees had years to prepare. By the time the examinations actually took place, the examinees had done so many mock written tests, interviews, and oral exams, they could have done the board examination in their sleep and still passed it with flying colours.

How different our tests are for us, as born-again believers! We take “exams”, too, but we don’t get years to prepare, let alone have the advantage of mock tests to pore over and practice. We learn as we go and we’re tested as we go, almost always with no heads-up whatsoever that a test is incoming. Even Jesus didn’t get a heads-up. For instance, he didn’t know his ministry was starting until his mother very publicly pushed him out of the nest at the wedding at Cana, and he didn’t know his ministry was ending until Moses and Elijah touched down at the “transfiguration” to give him his final orders. The non-Jew who came to Jesus asking him to cast out a demon from her daughter was also a test, as was the woman caught in adultery who should, by law, have been stoned, as was the “trick question” of whether Jews should pay the tribute tax to Caesar. Nearly everything in Jesus’ ministry was a spur-of-the-moment, sink-or-swim, baptism-by-fire kind of a test, and it’s the same for us.

For me, the most fascinating aspects of spiritual tests are first and foremost that you don’t know you’re in one until you’re in one, and secondly that they come out of nowhere and when you least expect them, and thirdly that they also usually come at the worst possible moment. In fact, the unexpectedness and I-don’t-need-this-nowness is part of the test. It’s all well and good to test someone on something they know they’re going to be tested on, giving them the time and resources to scrub their faces and put on their Sunday best, but it’s quite another thing to spring a test out of the blue. It’s the out-of-the-blue tests where you get the real results, and it’s the real results that God wants.

So let’s say, for example, that you had “one of those days” when things weren’t going so well. You’re finally on your way home, driving along the highway just minding your own business, when suddenly someone cuts you off, nearly causing you to rear-end them. Did you: a) curse and honk your horn at their recklessness, maybe even speeding up a bit to show your anger; b) take a deep breath, let it ride, and keep on rolling; or c) say a prayer for the driver and pull back, keeping a good distance between you and him. The correct response for born-again believers is obviously “c”, but how many of you seemingly instinctively did “a” before correcting yourself and reluctantly doing “c”? Or how many of you unapologetically did “a” and stubbornly refused to change that choice, thinking it was justified? Or how many of you never made it past “b”, thinking that was sufficient?

The beauty of the tests and trials we undergo as born-again believers is that the results show our true colors. Unlike the medical examinees taking the board certification examination, who can ace their tests solely by memorizing the material and then promptly forgetting it afterwards, we have to fly by the seat of our pants, and if the seat of our pants is split and dirty and our butt is hanging out, we have no way to hide it. But this, I would argue, is good. We don’t endure our tests for bragging rights; we endure them so that we and God (and anyone else God permits to know the results) will see precisely where we stand spiritually. The test results cannot be feigned or faked: They is what they is.

Equally beautiful is that if we fail a test, God will grant us a redo while there’s still time. I’ve had quite a few redos over the years since my rebirth; I wrote about one here. The redos will also come out of the blue, but boy oh boy, you’ll know it’s a redo by the impossibility of the so-called coincidences leading up to the test. For me, because I’m such a loud-mouth know-it-all (say it ain’t so! lol), most of the redos involve being kind to someone I was previously rude to or simply biting my tongue and choosing to say nothing when what I want to say is unprintable even by New Sodom standards. In both of these scenarios, I’m also tested on whether I follow up with a prayer or continue to silently stew. God measures not only what we say and do at the time of our test, but also – and more importantly – the contents and state of our hearts and minds after the test. How many of us say: “I believe!” but then do and say things later as if we don’t believe? That’s not a trick question, and the answer is “way too many”.

We cannot avoid our tests and we cannot even prepare for them, not the way medical graduates prepare for theirs by memorization and mock tests. All we can do is listen to what Jesus is saying to us and then apply it in our everyday lives. In this way, we build our house on the firm foundation of a rock, minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day, so that when tests come and we’re beaten and battered, our house still stands because it’s on a firm foundation. Not so if we build our house on sand, which is what happens if we hear what Jesus is saying but don’t apply it every day. In that case, when we’re beaten and battered, our house will fall (no other outcome is possible), never to rise again.

May you build your house on a rock with your every waking breath, no excuses.

Amen.