Does God test our faith?

[yessisan]

I have a friend who wrote me an email telling me God is testing her family’s faith. Her grandpa just passed away, her grandmother is really sick, and her dad just had a heart attack Friday. She was really upset and said she believes God is testing them. All I could tell her was that I didn’t think he was testing them. I said he was just trying to bring them closer together as a family.

I was wondering what people think about this issue. I am married to a JW and they don’t believe God tests us, they believe it’s all Satan’s work, and sometimes I think they are right, but then again, God takes people because it is their time to go, and things happen because God wants something good to come out out that.

So, does God really test our faith?

 

[leo123]

i don’t know whether God is testing them as such, though enduring such things and remaining faithful to God can be a test. I think it was Lucia from the Fatima apparitions who said that we should accept what suffering comes our way…this does not mean God sends it.

 

[Keikiolu]

I have a friend who wrote me an email telling me God is testing her family’s faith. Her grandpa just passed away, her grandmother is really sick, and her dad just had a heart attack Friday. She was really upset and said she believes God is testing them. All I could tell her was that I didn’t think he was testing them. I said he was just trying to bring them closer together as a family.

I was wondering what people think about this issue. I am married to a JW and they don’t believe God tests us, they believe it’s all Satan’s work, and sometimes I think they are right, but then again, God takes people because it is their time to go, and things happen because God wants something good to come out out that.

So, does God really test our faith?

Our job here is to learn. We learn from the “challenges” of our life experiences.

Does God inflict, ie ordain, suffering. No.

Does He allow suffering? Yes.

Is there ALWAYS more good after an evil than existed before the evil? Yes.

There is always good to learn from every situation. If you want to call “finding the good from out of evil” a “test”, you can, though I prefer to call it “learning”.

If you don’t learn what is there to learn, then you’ve not done your job in this world, and should pray all the harder for the humility to get out of your own way and see what God has to give you.

Mahalo ke Akua…!
E pili mau na pomaikai ia oe. Aloha nui.

 

[caille]

You might consult your copy of the Catechism. Look in the subject index and you’ll be guided to #164. Also, in #2847 it refers to the Holy Spirit helping to “discern between trials, which are necessary for the growth of the inner man”.

I’ve wondered why I slid into a long period of doubts just when I had really begun to take advantage of the richness of devotion the Church offers. I still don’t know the answer, but I do know I’m more certain in my faith and the reasons for it than I was before.

 

[VociMike]

God does not need to test our faith, since, being God, he already knows what the results would be.

 

[archangel63]

I seem to remember him testing Abraham with Isaac.
Yes, God does test our faith in Him.
I’ve had too many tests in my life.
But what your friend is dealing with sounds more like a “trial” than a test. Pray for your friend. The pain and worrying they are going through can be traumatic.

 

[Cari]

Isn’t that the whole story of Job? I know it was Satan who actually inflicted the damage, but it was with God’s permission, to test Job to see what his reaction would be.

God provides us with opportunities to grow in our faith. Some of those opportunities feel like trials and tests to us on this side of the veil.

Cheers,
Cari

 

[MH_au]

Four premises and a conclusion:

1. ]God loves us perfectly.]Consider forms of love - all involve trust.]In loving us, God trusts us.]Testing us would not be a trusting action.
   
   Therefore, God does not test us.
   
   Also, why would an omniscient entity need to test persons and ideas?

 

[Keikiolu]

Four premises and a conclusion:

1. 
   *]God loves us perfectly.
   *]Consider forms of love - all involve trust.
   *]In loving us, God trusts us.
   *]Testing us would not be a trusting action.
   Therefore, God does not test us.
   
   Also, why would an omniscient entity need to test persons and ideas?

1. 
   Touche…!
   
   If anyone is “testing” us, it is us, ourselves, if we have any measure of wisdom in us, which God has actually placed in each of us.
   
   To one without faith, the “trials” of life drive one to consider the “whys”. This eventually drives one to belief in “a just cause” (God) of all things, or to a belief in the “despair-ate (desparate) grasping for comfort by brutality when necessary” (Satan).
   
   Mahalo ke Akua…!
   E pili mau na pomaikai ia oe. Aloha nui.

 

[Nita]

*James 1:2-3 Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. *

*Sirach 2:4-5 Accept whatever is brought upon you, and in changes that humble you be patient. For gold is tested in the fire, and acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. *

God does test us. I’m sure His reasons vary with the individual. Sometimes I think it’s to reveal one to one’s self. Like Peter, we think we are strong (“I will never deny You”); but when the test comes we discover our true strength.

Nita

Other Scripture passages: (Deut 8:2; Deut 13:1-3)

 

[Cari]

Four premises and a conclusion:

1. ]God loves us perfectly.]Consider forms of love - all involve trust.]In loving us, God trusts us.]Testing us would not be a trusting action.
   
   Therefore, God does not test us.

1. 
   Well, I trust my children, yet I’m still going to test them. From something as simple as “quizzing” them on their address, to allowing them to play unattended in the front yard for the first time. It is a test. If they fail, and run amok in my flower garden, consequences follow. So it is with God. I think the advances we’ve made in science, for example, are just such a test. As we learn more and more about science, are we going to follow God’s laws, or are we going to “run amok in the flower gardens” and suffer the consequences.
   I think that saying trust and tests are incompatable is false.
   

   Also, why would an omniscient entity need to test persons and ideas?

   Two words. Free Will. The tests are opportunities for us to grow in grace. The tests are undeserved chances to strengthen our spiritual muscles. Why else would we have example after example of saints suffering mightily, if not to show us the amazing gift God gives us to become more like Christ.