Life Is a Test

Life is a test. Every part of it. Every decision we make, every reaction we have to every situation life presents us with, everything is part of the test.

Since I know I'm being tested, that gives me some incentive to want to pass my tests. I want to make good decisions. I want to become the man that God knows I can be. I want to be good. Part of that involves standing on principle in every situation. Some of that includes always trying to be polite. I feel like I do pretty well at those things, but there are other tests that I regularly fail. Tests of patience and diligence, mostly. I need to work on those.

I think it's important to bear in mind, and far too easy to forget, that God is watching us and making note of our actions. He keeps a record of everything we do and say. Then, wouldn't we want our record to be full of good things? Wouldn't we want to be able to say that we did good? As long as we're being judged, we should try to perform actions that we wouldn't mind being judged by. We should try to do as much good as we can as often as we can muster the courage to try.

Thankfully, God is patient with us. I am confident that He remembers what it's like to be human, and though He asks a lot of us, I think that His expectations of us are actually fairly realistic. God is known for His justice, but He's known for His mercy as well. We are being tested, but we are being judged fairly, if not generously.

Life is a test, and we should remember that, but we should also remember that it's a test that we can pass.