It Wasn't Your Test...

Have you ever handled a situation imperfectly? ("Almost 100% of the time" would be the correct answer there...)

The other day, I was analyzing where mine and Tim's shortcomings lay in handling some events of the past year. Yeah. Imagine that. When are we both aware of our faults? Only all the time, every day, that's all.

Suddenly, God broke through my self important musing. (Going over one's faults can be a form of self importance.) I know His voice. He said to me, clear as clear can be:

"But Daughter, none of it was your test. It was __________ 's test."

I have been tested and tried by God so many times, even up to and including this day. Leaders get so used to being tested, we can begin to think that we are never not being tested. But none of what I was bothering myself about, in that particular series of events, was my test or Tim's test in the first place.

Perspective.

There may be things you have not handled perfectly properly as a parent, as a pastor, as a leader, as an employee, as a boss, as a person. But if the test wasn't yours, if God was not testing you, you weren't being graded, pure and simple. The person being tested is the person who needed the evaluation, more for their own information than anyone else's. Tests come by the way, not as final judgment or condemnation, but simply to reveal our mastery of material we are supposed to have learned. Sometimes we've humbled ourselves enough to pass, sometimes we fail.

But if we aren't the ones being tested this time...if the test is, in fact, someone else's test and we just happen to be involved, why then it "just is". There is no pass or fail for you in this case. Just do your best - live what you know to be right and true, however imperfectly.

If you are in a difficult place, with accusation being hurled your direction, it is very important to discern, "Whose test is this?"

Are you the one being tested? Or is this your son's test? Your daughter's test? Is this your test, or the other person's, or both? Sure, it can be both of your test. But not everything is your test. Get that. Hear that.

Some people tend to think everything is their test from God, some people live as though nothing is their test. I definitely fall in the first category. I know how to borrow guilt from the vast expanse of the universe. So it was revelation to me that...

....it was not my test. It was theirs.

Ah, that final letting go is sweet. Buh-bye accusation, once and for all, at least in this case.

Case. Closed. (That's what is said, by the way, when an accusation doesn't stick.)

(and she closes up her laptop, humming to herself happily...)