Don’t panic when God tests us

IT’S something we should expect. It should be considered a given in our life, a fact of life. God can test us. He can seem to ask us to do something not only difficult but also impossible.

We are reminded of this aspect of our life in that gospel episode where Christ asked his disciples to feed the big crowd that gathered to listen to him. (cfr. Jn 6,1-15) “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” He said this to test Philip, one of the apostles, because he himself knew what he was going to do.

And poor Philip could not help but say, “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.” But another apostle, Andrew said, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” And then the big miracle of the multiplication of the loaves of bread and fish took place.

We should realize that when God tests us, it is because he finds us ready for it and also because he wants us to grow more in our spiritual life, in our trust in him and in his providence. The test is an occasion to grow in some virtues.

So what we have to do is to enliven our faith and realize that God takes care of everything. We, of course, should do our part, even if what we can do would be hardly anything, just like the few loaves of bread and fish that the apostles provided for the big crowd.

We know that as long as we are with our Lord, everything will work out for the good. (cfr. Rom 8,28) Not only our limitations but also our mistakes can lead to some good if referred to God.

We should train ourselves in strengthening our faith so that our reactions to God’s tests on us would not unnecessarily lead us to fall into stress, sadness or bitterness.

For this, certain spiritual exercises are needed, like repeating some ejaculatory prayers that express our trust and hope in God’s providence, making more acts of self-denial, having more recourse to the sacraments, etc.

Especially these days when we are easily seduced to react to things in a superficial way—like just being instinctive or emotional or just flowing with the fashions of the time—we need to realize that strengthening our spiritual exercises and having constant recourse to the supernatural means like the sacraments, is a must. In fact, it’s an urgent must.

If we have to do a million things just to survive, let alone, to keep ourselves physically fit, like having to eat, drink and exercise regularly, and of course, preparing the food and the other things needed, so should we do a number of things also to keep ourselves spiritually alive and healthy.

Obviously doing the spiritual things require a certain kind of effort since they are not dictated by our physical needs which we immediately feel. They depend a lot on the level of our faith and our correspondence to God’s grace.

And so, we just have to help one another to realize this need for spiritual and supernatural means to develop our spiritual and supernatural life, explaining things well with gift of tongue and giving good example to everyone.