Testing 1, 2, 3

Posted on | June 2, 2010 | 2 Comments

I am fortunate enough to have a gym in my apartment building complex, available to me free of charge. Over the last five or so months, it’s been a part of my weekly routine. Recently, the complex management informed residents that the gym would be closed for two months for renovations.

Naturally, I’ve been annoyed and frustrated by this, especially coming so soon after reaching a milestone. When I explained this to a friend, she said something that made me pause: maybe God is testing you.

We all know the clichés, including the one that says God never gives you anything you can’t handle and there’s Biblical support for the idea that God tests us as part of our faith, but I’m having a hard time reconciling my idea of God with a God who decides to test us for no other apparent reason other than to see how we react.

First and foremost, it’s so insignificant. A closed gym is an annoyance, something to work around. It just doesn’t seem to matter enough to be a test. Second, it would be really presumptuous of me to assume that God would test me – out of all the millions of people in the world. Am I really supposed to believe there is a divine reason behind my apartment complex’s renovations? Surely there are plenty of forces at work here.

Mostly, though, I just don’t like the idea of a God who plays with people’s lives. My gym being closed is so unimportant in the grander scheme of things. If it is a test, what does that mean for all the people who are truly suffering – the victims of war and violence, the people who live in heartbreaking poverty, the people who die every day from preventable diseases? Are they being tested too? If they are, I’m not sure that’s the kind of God I want to believe in.

I mean, we could conceivably argue that everything is a test, and if we did, what would that say about free will? At what point do we stop assigning the blame or control to God and instead take responsibility for ourselves and those around us?

I don’t think God is testing me with this gym closure. It’s just an opportunity for me to prove that I can find creative solutions to unexpected problems, with or without the input of an interfering deity.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

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