Tested

When I think of faith being tested, I rarely think of my own faith being tested. I mean, I am a Christian, I believe, that alone should be enough. As I have journeyed through my twenties I learned that claiming Christianity isn't enough. It's like a baby saying, "I'm born. Isn't that enough?" As I look back on it, I see its a great start. It's the best start. It's not like claiming Christianity isn't enough. It's the fact there is so much more that could be experienced.

Let me explain it this way:
when my husband and I married, I would have preferred that we started out debt free. We didn't.  The experience of working together to get out of debt, is what helped us learn to work as a team. This experience was not an easy, smooth or simple process. It brought us to the edge of what our marriage could take. However, we wouldn't have experienced the troubles or the triumph together, without first pledging our love to each other in marriage. Our wedding began our life together. Our wedding was a great start. Our wedding isn't what taught us how to work together. Our marriage was tested, from the beginning. Would we be able to overcome? Or would we be broken by life's experiences as a married couple?

Being a Christian is a similar experience. How will I know the depth of God's love for me, if I don't have experiences that break my heart? How will I learn to trust Him completely, if I always have other people who will bail me out of problems? I'm not saying I like heartbreak and loneliness, its just been my burden to bear. Other people have other burdens that either bring them to their knees, or break their faith completely. I have heard this verse throughout my life, but it just sank in this morning: "For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin with God's household"(1 Peter 4:17). I get it now. When God has a plan for the world, He starts with His people, and He tests them.  Having experienced life as an adult, I don't think God expects His people to necessarily "get it" the first time. Like Jonah, He will come after us until we find the right path and follow His plan to completion. God's will is perfect, but He has imperfect followers, who have a tendency to bungle things up badly. This is why I am so thankful for forgiveness. I need it so often. And a fresh start. I am willing to do His will, just often confused as to what His will means.


When HomePage started over a decade ago, the mission involved relationships. In fact our mission statement starts with "restoring relationships between God and man." An ambitious undertaking for sure. However, after several years, it didn't seem like "restoring relationships" between anybody was actually occurring. To understand what is happening often takes time. Sometimes I will think to myself "in ten years this experience might make sense." Like a great philosopher once said "You live life looking forward, you understand it looking backward." Moments like today are when I understand what happened. If as a church body you are going to try something that no one else has tried, you will be tested first. Let me repeat myself: YOU WILL BE TESTED FIRST!! If your mission is to restore relationships, guess what? Your relationships will be tested first. It's easy to think that the testing, and the failures along the way are the end of the story.
Failure is only the end of the story, if you let it be the end of the story. Failure is only a chapter in the story. Multiple failures are only different portions of the story. God, however, doesn't seem to have a problem with having a lot of Jonahs for help.  If I let God tell the story of my testing, He has His own plan. From the story of Job, a man whose testing of faith brought him  face-to-face with the decision of whether to choose life or death, understood being tested. Job faithfully stated "But he knows where I am going. And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold"(Job 23:10). That is our promise too. In fact over the last several years, I have watched as relationships are restored between people and with God. A church experience that might have been labeled a failure, has found its way and is blessing others. It's an amazing experience to participate in! My life is enriched and blessed by this group of people!!

God knows our desire to serve and worship Him. Since testing begins at the House of God, we know it can't be avoided. Failure oftentimes cannot be avoided either. How else would we learn? What we can understand is by maintaining our devotion to Him during the time of testing, our faith will be purified, and we will come forth like gold, pure gold.

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Comforted like Job

"In the world you will have trouble, but I'm leaving you my peace
That where I am, there you may also be" Rich Mullins.


I find the story of Job a great comfort. There was a time in my life when it seemed like all would be lost. Relationships..... gone. Financial support....... gone. Emotions reeling from all of the losses. Spiritually drained - exceeding hopelessness, and an uncertain future. My emotions in a place of constant change as well, dealing with uncertainty and fear of the future. Honestly though, I am glad that I didn't know that there would be even more painful losses in the future...however, that is for a different time, if I ever figure out how to tell that story.   

Why did I experience such loss in my younger days?

I believe that when we experience such devastating losses, there are two choices that we have to make:

1. Attempt to take control
2. Learn to become flexible

An attempt to take control over life is to give into the fear of loss and instead of embracing the new opportunities, to seek out a way to never feel such grief again. There are so many ways that losses are experienced, divorce (parents and/or personal), emotional cut-off, job loss, loss of a family member or friend, moving and so many more things,  The problem with taking control, is that in order to maintain control over relationships,  life and God, your emotional and relational world must become smaller and smaller. Why? Because relationships, life and God are unpredictable. So an attempt to control life, usually results in few people able to meet the "tests" and exceeding demands a person attempting to control can manage. Relational burnout occurs, and other people move into to replace those who can no longer emotionally support an individual in such desperate need of control. However, that control is comforting, it feels like protection and action against future losses. So I can understand why someone would choose this journey.

I like this verse in Job. I think it answers well the attempts to control God's actions in my life. "Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it" (Job 40:2 NKJV). I am not saying that we must not question God. I am saying that when we do question God, the conversation gets real pretty fast.

The second option - learning to become flexible - is what I have sought most of my life in response to loss and grief. One of  my spiritual mentors is Paula Rinehart. Her book Strong Women, Soft Hearts, is a book that is well loved, bent, taped together, and always an inspiration no matter how many times I have read it.

Paula Rinehartsays "we meander through life, and somewhere along the way, pain enters our lives and leaves an indelible mark, as though it has actually been stamped on our passports. My point is that eventually pain does get stamped on your passport. No matter how hard you work to avoid it, pain makes its appearance; and the hardest part to accept, sometimes, is its inevitability" (Strong Women, Soft Hearts, 42-43).

Why do I choose to be flexible? Once again I am inspired by Paula Rinehart:

Exquisite pain that love is, it is forever interwoven with the risk of offering your heart to another person, who sometimes tramps all over it. Love anything....and your heart will be wrung. The more you succeed at love, the more you will have to lose. But honestly, would playing it safe and hedging your bets take you any place you really wanted to be? (Strong Women, Soft Hearts 158).

With flexibility my life, my heart, my home is enlarged. I have more blessings in my life and I have more opportunities for my future. Having made the choices I have, I cannot imagine living my life in a small spiritual box, or in a small relational box because I must have control over my life. My constant prayer is that I can accept the losses in my life, grieve the losses in my life, without taking them out on my husband, friends and family, and allow God to create beauty out of those losses.

I don't know why I must experience loss. I don't know why my family and friends must experience loss other than the fact that there is sin in the world. I do know that as I work through different losses, and give my future to God, that I am more content then I have ever been. Looking back at the story of Job, the ending is quite unexpected. Job responded to the rebuke from God by saying "I have uttered what i did not understand. Things too wonderful for which I did not understand" (Job 42:3). Out of Job's losses, losses so devastating I cannot understand, Job was  blessed, "now the Lord blessed the latter days of Job, more than his beginning"(Job 42:12).

I think that if you choose to be flexible and deal with life as it comes, with prayer and thanksgiving, you will find the blessings, because you will be looking for them.