God's Tests

I don't like to study. At all. In my whole life, I can never remember liking to study, even the subjects I liked. This has resulted in more than one failed test, and unfortunately, many more passes than fails. It may come as a surprise to some that I consider having a photographic memory and high retention rate for facts "unfortunate", but I do. When other kids were off in their rooms studying feverishly for tests and quizzes, I was most likely reading a book or amusing myself in some other way. I was a smart kid, and for most of my academic life I have not really needed to study, though I have been hit in the face with that need more than once since entering college, and even a few times in high school.

Many times over the past year or so, I have labored in my spiritual life under the delusion that unlike many of the tests I have taken in academia, the tests God gives are surprises. No announcement a week ahead of time, no study guide, and no notes (though I admit He is much better at preventing the people He tests from cheating!). However, this is not true. Okay, so maybe I don't take spiritual notes on anything, but if I cared to look hard enough, I would certainly see it coming, and I read enough online and in books for them to serve as study guides. God is even nice enough to throw me lifelines in the middle of my tests in the form of my friends and anyone else who might have the answers to my questions.

But this doesn't mean I don't wish I'd learned to study. I was hit in the face with this fact this morning, reading one of my school's chaplain's blog posts. He mentioned how when people face difficulty in their lives, he asks them if they're praying. Not just "Do you say your prayers before bed?", but if they're saying heartfelt prayers and entering into meaningful conversation with God. Many people, he says, sheepishly admit that they're not doing so, and more often than not, neither am I. It kind of hurt me to admit that to myself, since I know I should be doing a better job in my prayer life, but I suppose that even as much as it hurts me, it must hurt God even more.

You see, as much as I try to be faithful, and oftentimes fail, I think of myself as the sheep from the Gospel of Luke. Except that I must be the most schizophrenic sheep in the entire world, because I will stray, allow God to find me, let Him take me at least part of the way back, and then start to fight Him. Or if I do get all the way back, I start peeking through the holes in the pasture fence to see what's outside, as if I hadn't just been there and discovered firsthand how bad it is. Saying this makes me realize just how silly this habit is, and how, if I had such a sheep, I would probably keep it under an extra lock and key to protect it from its own sheer stupidity. But no, this dumb little sheep is allowed her free will to go waltzing back out into her sin outside the pasture, and is promptly responded to when she bleats for the Shepherd to come find her and take her back home.

I find this is true now more than ever, as coming back home has provided ample opportunities for me to stray, and I knew it would. I was warned more than once that being at home would be hard, and I should build up a solid, regular prayer life where it was the norm while I could, so it would be habit when the school year was over. And I kinda, sorta listened to those warnings, but not nearly enough. I did pray every day, and I still do, but it's harder having to go almost from the ground up now that I'm no longer in a spiritual vacuum. In other words, I knew the test was coming, I got multiple warnings about it, and I decided not to study. I decided that I could make it through the test on what little effort I had to put in during class. Now, as with any academic test, I'm not quite halfway through, and already pulling about a C (if that).

Fortunately, God's tests, provided they're long enough, are the ones you can kind of study for while you're taking them. So all is not lost for the crazy sheep, though she will have to start really saying her prayers, and try not to stand so close to the gate.  :)