The first test from God…
The kitchen reeked!
Had something spoiled in the refrigerator?
I opened the door. No odor there.
My nose led me to the sink. It is a double sink. Both sides were filled with bad smelling, discolored water.
I turned on the garbage disposal. Water went down one drain and shot out of the other one like a mini geyser of garbage.
I turned to my wife….
”What did you put down the sink?” I asked.
”What are you talking about?”
“The sink is stopped up. What did you put down the garbage disposal?”
My wife gave me that look. A look I recognized well after more than 30 years of marriage; a look that said, “Blaming me again, huh?”
Plumber time!
“Here’s your problem”, he said, handing me the liner from a package of spoiled hamburger I had put down the disposal along with a bill for 225 dollars.
Blaming my wife for something I had done. A test from God? If so I had failed.
The second test from God…
Had I learned my lesson? A few minutes later, I was on the phone with a customer service rep.
“We’ll send you a temporary password via email,” she said.
“I have a new email.”
“Then just log on and change the email.”
“But I’ll need my password to log on.”
“I can only email your password to you, Sir.”
Let’s just say that’s when I got a little “testy”.
Test #2. Failure # 2.
The third test from God and a lesson In grace…
Time for lunch. Little did I know test number three was waiting at the fast food restaurant.
There was one other customer at the counter, standing far back from the registers.
“Have you ordered yet?” my wife asked.
We thought he said “yes”, so we moved toward the counter.
In a low voice he said, “How many times do I have to tell you I have not ordered and the line starts here?”
“The line starts here!” he said again, his voice rising.
Yelling now at the top of his lungs, he repeated, “How many times do I have to tell you the line starts here?”
The whole restaurant fell silent.
“The line starts here!” His face was red.
“The line starts here!”
“The line starts here!”
In that moment, several reactions came to mind. Not one of them was very nice. (Please note. This sentence makes intentional use of dramatic understatement.)
A third test from God? It would have been a third failure.
Fortunately this time God gave me an example of the right thing to do. From my wife.
“I’m sorry, Sir. We misunderstood,” she said and led me quickly out of the restaurant.
When I think about my actions that day, I think of the words from the old Hymn, “Come Thou Fount”…
“Prone to wander Lord, I feel it…”
My failures that day also remind me of my great need for grace. In the words of the same hymn…
“O to Grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be…”
Perhaps there were no “tests” that day…
Perhaps the whole day was one big lesson, A lesson from a God who has promised he will never give up on us. A lesson from a God who loves us so much he sent His Son to die for us. A lesson designed to teach that we are all utterly dependent on His grace.
