Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent - March 20

Daniel 3:14-20, 91-92, 95     John 8:31-42

Digesting scripture is tricky, mostly because different people have different takeaways based on their own ideas and life. Today’s readings have one main message that profoundly resonates with me.

The scene begins when Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago are asked why they do not worship the king. Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago proclaim that they believe in God, and refuse to worship the king. Nabuchadnezzar again asks them to pledge allegiance to him, otherwise they will be thrown into a furnace. This is a question of faith. Questions of faith are seen throughout the Bible; such as Moses and the Red Sea, Saul and the offering, the entire story of Job, and many more. The question that arrived in my head was “Why. Why does God challenge our faith?”

I remember we discussed a similar topic in one of my Religion Classes. We were going over the story of Job, my personal favorite in the bible, when my teacher asked the exact question. “Why does God challenge our faith?'' I raised my hand and unconfidently answered “Free Will.” My teacher smiled and told me that my answer was only as correct as I believed it was. Reading today’s verses illuminated my personal answer. I was correct, to an extent. God challenges us to see where our loyalties lie. Thinking back to that same class period, I remember being taught that if we had no free will, there would be no faith at all. God did not make us to be robots, he made us to make the choice to believe and follow him, otherwise the faith would not be genuine.

The Gospel is about truth setting you free, and sin making you a slave. God gave us free will for us all to be free. God does not want us to be enslaved, so he wants us to stay away from sin. Going back to our question “Why does God challenge our faith?” It is clear that God challenges us in more ways than one. God will not always challenge us by explicitly asking us to worship a false king, but he will challenge us by temptation. If we give in to temptation, and by doing so we sin, then we have now become slaves to sin. Knowing that, my personal answer is clear: God challenges us to help us learn from our past experiences, and to become free spirits.

Q: How do I answer this question for myself: “Why does God challenge my faith in him?”

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