"The Great Test of Life"

Along the same lines of what I wrote yesterday, I found a photo on facebook with a quote that reads:

So, the great test of life is to see whether we will hearken to and obey God's commandments in the midst of the storms of life. It is not to endure storms, but to choose the right while they rage. ...It will take unshakeable faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to choose the way to eternal life.
-Henry B. Eyring

I wanted to share the photo itself, but my blog seems to have a problem with that idea.

After blogging yesterday, I felt that I had left something out. Life's not just to prove how strong we already are, but also to help make us stronger. In life, there will always be challenges. Our test is not only to prove that we are strong enough to overcome them but to, if necessary, become strong enough to overcome them. I believe the tests of life are designed to push us to our limits, and even beyond them, so we are frequently required to do things that we were unable to do before. I think that's true, partly because it matches up so well with a few things we already know to be true: Part of the purpose of life is to become more like God, and God is a much better, wiser, stronger person than we are.

President Eyring said that "it will take unshakeable faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to choose the way to eternal life." Perhaps that is by design. Maybe the test isn't just to see who's good enough or strong enough to be worthy of eternal life, but also to help those of us who fall short (which is pretty much all of us) to take steps toward reaching that goal. It's not just to see who can lift the weight, but to make everyone stronger as they try.

But in order to become stronger, we must keep trying. This is unfortunate for many of us because the tests of life are often very discouraging. Some of the challenges we face require more faith, wisdom, and strength than we have. I believe that God sometimes gives us challenges that are impossible for us to face successfully without His help. I blogged about that once. I should re-read that blog post because I can't remember what I said.

Wow, I write long blog posts.

Okay, that was kind of helpful. That blog post, Problems That We Cannot Solve, addressed the condition that I just described, that of having challenges and weaknesses that we can't overcome without help from God. At the time, I said that it was a tool that God could use to encourage us to come to Him for more wisdom and strength. I recently heard of a story of a boy who was trying to do something, fix his bicycle, I think, but he just couldn't do it. Tearfully, he said to his father that he had done everything he could do, and the father said, "No you haven't. You haven't asked me to help you." Then the father helped his son fix the bicycle.

But what's the purpose of that? Asking God to solve our problems for us won't make us any more wise or capable than we already are. Maybe He wants to teach us how to do it by showing us how to do it? Maybe He's helping us, but He's only helping us as much as we need. For example, if we're trying to lift a weight together, maybe it's not that He lifts the weight for us, but that He has us give it every ounce of strength we have, and then He makes us the difference by supplying just enough strength that, together, we manage to lift the weight. That way, the weight is successfully lifted and we still get some exercise out of it.

Relating that back to the "great test of life" that President Eyring spoke of, the test seems mostly a question of whether we'll keep trying to reach our goals and overcome our challenges, even when it's extremely difficult and sometimes seems impossible. Perhaps it's as much of a test of diligent effort as a test of actual ability. Perhaps it's not so much of a test to see whether we're strong/wise/capable enough to overcome our challenges, but whether we're brave enough to try.

I know that God will help us, and that, succeed or fail, He'll be with us as long as we keep trying. Having God with me is worth an attempt at facing the challenges He gives me, no matter how discouraging my failure will be. *squares shoulders and takes a deep breath* I am a paladin. I will persevere. In victory or defeat, my God is with me. In His strength, I will triumph in the end.