Good morning to each of you. I pray you slept well. This morning I want to talk about tests. Psalm 26:2 says, “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind." What’s the hardest test you have ever taken? Did your anxiety build thinking about the numbers and equations in your big calculus final in college? Or what about that literature test back in high school where you were asked to give a well-supported analysis of Homer’s Odyssey. Whatever it was, one thing is for certain, we have all faced various tests in life.
Imagine asking God for a test to see how your faith is doing. God, who could crack open the ground right where you are standing, is the one you are asking to test. If God were to test you in the midst of this Coronavirus Pandemic, how would you be doing? Do you find yourself dealing with a lot of worry and anxiety or do you trust in him?
We all know the story of David. In fact I’ve been preaching a lot about his life these past couple of Wednesday’s. He was an adulterer and murderer and yet he was a man “after God’s own heart.” David wanted God to test his faith so he could know how genuine it was. David wanted to be a godly man of high integrity and love, and in order to know what kind of man he was, he needed to have his faith tested.
What about you? How is your faith? Are you trusting God? I sure hope so because I can tell you this for certain, we will pass this coronavirus test. We will make it through to the other side of this. We will. Oh, yes, it may get more challenging as we ask, “How long, O Lord, how long?” But we know, at the end of the day, we will pass any test our Lord puts on us because we have the perfect obedience of Christ’s love in us. We look to the one who passed every test from his Father and we say, “I trust in him, because I know that he is for me, he died and rose again for me, and in his strength I can overcome anything that comes my way.” Believe it, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Blessings,
Pastor Bryan E. Drebes
Rev. Bryan Drebes is Pastor at Pacific Hills Lutheran Church in Omaha NebraskaPastor Drebes attended Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, beginning in 1997. He spent the summer of 1999 teaching English to Chinese middle school teachers in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. He served a four-month vicarage at St. John Lutheran Church, Plymouth, Wisconsin, followed by eight months at Bethany Lutheran Church, Overland Park, Kansas. Pastor Drebes was ordained into the Office of the Holy Ministry at Zion Lutheran Church, Palmyra, Missouri on August 19, 2001, and installed as Associate Pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church, Overland Park, Kansas on September 9, 2001. He served Bethany for 14 years. Pastor Drebes accepted a Divine