The Reason You’re Being Tested
“For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver.” (Psalm 66:10)
Have you tried to do right, yet things have gone wrong? When Joseph honored God by saying no to Potiphar’s wife, he landed in prison. While there he told a fellow prisoner, ‘I was kidnapped from my homeland…and now I’m here in prison, but I did nothing to deserve it’ (Genesis 40:15). If that’s how you feel today, God has not turned His back on you. His plan for your life has not been derailed. ‘The Lord shall not turn back until He has executed and accomplished the thoughts and intents of His mind’ (Jeremiah 30:24).
You may be perplexed, but God is not. He is using every moment of this season and every element of this experience to prepare you. ‘They bruised his feet with fetters and placed his neck in an iron collar. Until the time came to fulfil his dreams, the LORD tested Joseph’s character’ (Psalm 105:18-19). Do you remember how you felt about the tests you were given in school? At the time they felt like persecution but looking back you realize they were preparation. They revealed what you had learned. They qualified you to move to a higher grade. They helped you better understand your strengths and weaknesses.
The psalmist wrote: ‘For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance’ (Psalm 66:10-12). God will use people, pain, and problems to test you. Why? So that He can bring you to ‘a place of abundance’.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank You for testing me to shape and refine me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
ITTT
This is what I need today. Thursday I planned since a month ago to have a blessed Thanksgiving with a friend I never see who is a Christian to praise God give thanks and share the scriptures. It all turned out wrong . I was crushed, as she swallowed a huge glass of wine she told me the church is going to hell they don’t know Jesus and you(me) spit out many scriptures but you are negative and never said one good thing in this whole dinner. She didn’t want to hear my prepared stuff with 6 reasons to be thankful with Scripture and never mentioned anything like it herself to celebrate Thanksgiving.. On the bus on the way home the Holy Spirit gave me a thought you planned this I didn’t tell you to do it. This was a NEEDED lesson from God for me. I need to stop making plans and Submit in Prayer to Him AND OBEY. This message today says God uses people pain and problems to test us. Amen and Amen!