A Meditation

by J. Michael Strawn

#1. Throughout the Bible many historical actors, in various circumstances, were gripped by an apparently common confusion.

#2. Those individuals confused a spiritual test for an outcome. They are not the same.

#3. The Israelite army under King Saul, locked in contact in the Valley of Elah, made that mistake, 1 Samuel 17. They confused a test of faith for an outcome & acted accordingly. David bore no such confusion. He knew that the contest between himself & Goliath was a test, not an outcome. The outcome was freedom from Philistine dominion.

#4. The Exodus generation found themselves, in peril at the Red Sea, then in the desert without resources; both they treated as outcomes, rather than tests of faith. The people behaved badly, Exodus 1-17.

#5. Paul, the apostle, & others with him, were imperiled in Asia. Even the apostle saw the situation as an outcome, initially. It was “…beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life”, 2 Corinthians 1:8. Later he recognized it as a test of faith, “…we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead”, 2 Corinthians 1:9.

#6. The disciples, reeling from the death of Jesus, were convinced that an outcome had materialized, Luke 24. The Lord, however, knew better. His Excellency treated His death as a test of faith, not an outcome. The outcome was resurrection.

#7. At Kadesh-Barnea the people heard the faithless report of the ten spies & considered the invasion of Canaan an outcome unthinkable, Numbers 13, 14. They turned back on the day of battle.

#8. Hardships, trials, tribulations are still coming our way. Our suffering & uncertainty are best treated as tests of faith & not as outcomes. It is intuitive to think of sudden & unexpected developments as outcomes, which mislead us into unwarranted ways of reasoning & questionable behavior.

#9. So much fear & depression come from the wrong response to human experience. Treating a test of faith as an outcome leads to resignation, discouragement, even despair. So let’s do something else. Let us face each trial as yet another test of our faith & leave the outcome to the One who in darkness sees & in doubtings leads. Nothing is impossible with God!