Tried, tested and true?

Would you come out on top if God tested you? How would you get through it? Why does God test us, or better yet a question that is asked by Christians and non-Christians alike is why does God let bad things happen to good people?

I have been going through my own series of tests and tribulations the past week, and it has seemed nearly impossible to get through it all. I have endured a week without my wife and family, and the thing that is keeping us apart seems like it is not even going to happen. I guess I should explain this a little better.

I received a promotion from the company that I work for, and it has taken me out of town, to Cranbrook BC, which is 3 and a half hours away from Lethbridge. It’s not bad you say, it’s not that far away, but it is far enough that I cannot commute every day, so that leaves me in hotel for this week. We prepared for all of this in advance, put our house on the market, started packing and getting ready for all of to leave hoping and believing that God would sell our house in time so we would not have to spend time apart. A month went by and nothing came, the deadline came closer and closer to where I would have to be away without my family during the week. Still we kept praying and having faith that God was going to sell our house in time.

As you can see from earlier in the post that I am currently away from wife and kids, it is just for this past week but the deadline is in only 2 weeks before I am up here full time. I have been so mad at God for this, I have prayed so hard, I have had faith in Him and believed that He would do it and I have received nothing. No answers, no sale of our house and one of the hardest weeks I have probably ever faced. No sleep, no one to talk too, all alone.

Needless to say I am not coming out on top right, I am beaten and defeated, Satan has been whispering words of despair and fear in my ears and I have been listening to it all. Why, why is it all going wrong, why is he not answering my wife’s and my prayers? Why is it so hard, why am I being tested and why is all going wrong? WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS!?

Nothing, these are the whispers in my ears, the doubts that Satan in putting in head and on my heart. The easiest way to break us as Christians is to divide us from our God. “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”  Philippians 4:13.

So why are we tested? Because in testing we find strength and we learn to trust and rely on our heavenly father.  A popular song by Mercy Me goes like this : 

“I can count a million times

People asking me how                                                                                                                                                               I Can praise You with all that I've gone through

The question just amazes me

Can circumstances possibly

Change who I forever am in You

Maybe since my life was changed

Long before these rainy days

It's never really ever crossed my mind

To turn my back on you, oh Lord

My only shelter from the storm

But instead I draw closer through these times

So I pray

Bring me joy, bring me peace

Bring the chance to be free

Bring me anything that brings You glory

And I know there'll be days

When this life brings me pain

But if that's what it takes to praise You

Jesus, bring the rain

Mercy Me: Bring the Rain

It is through our hardships that our faith in Christ grows, it is through our struggles that we become better people and it gives us the ability to witness to others when God pulls us though on top of it all.

That is the point of testing, look at Job. He is the perfect example of testing. God did make bad things happen to Job, he allowed them to occur but only because he knew that Job could persevere though it all. ”Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” Job 1: 8  

My mom used to say this when times were tuff, “God never throws more at you than he knows you can handle.” I thank God that my mom was given such wisdom and it has helped me though a lot of hard times.

If you are going through hard times, if you are being tested and all seems lost. Keep your head held high, stomp your foot down and shout out: “SATAN YOU CANNOT DEFEAT, I DENY THE DOUBTS THAT YOU PUT ON MY HEART AND I DENY YOU!”

God is with you though all things, and he will never let you fall.

Be blessed and remember to keep the faith.