Does God Test Us: 5 Biblical Examples

Does God test us? Are you going through a tough time and feeling like your world is falling apart? Fret not, for these trials might be the Lord testing you. But why? To see if you’re good enough, like a child taking a spelling test? Or to see if you have the mettle like a metal ingot stretched to its limit during a tensile strength test?

Before we answer that, let’s first get this out of the way: God does not tempt as James, Jesus’ brother, says in James 1:13:

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.  

In spiritual warfare, temptation will come our way although it will not be God tempting us, but He will allow the tempting and provide an escape route as Paul shares in 1 Corinthians 10:13:

No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

Back to the question at hand, does God test us? While God does not tempt, He does test us. So which Bible verses will we review to back up this theory? Here are the specific Bible verses:

• Deuteronomy 8:2
• Psalms 11:4-5
• Proverbs 17:3
• Jeremiah 17:9-10
• Hebrews 11:17-19

There are two other verses we will explore telling us not only does God test us, but we should ask for His testing. Our excursion begins in the Wilderness of Sinai, so let’s go!

Humbled Reliance on God

God tested Israel over and over, as they wandered within the Wilderness of Sinai, refining them by removing their Egyptian ways and dependence upon their flesh.

Deuteronomy 8:2:

And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 

In the wilderness, Israel could only depend upon God for their needs:

• Water from the rock (Exodus 17:6) 
• Food from the sky (Exodus 16:35) 
• Clothes and sandals did not wear out for forty years (Deuteronomy 29:5)

The Lord humbled them through this testing, so they would only rely upon Him for their needs, as summarized in Deuteronomy 8:3-5:

So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you.

Humbled reliance on God are the two takeaways from these verses. Up next, we journey from Sinai’s wilderness to King David in the book of Psalms.

Trust in the Lord

David, a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22), understood the concept of testing and its results upon the righteous and the wicked.

Psalms 11:4-5:

The Lord is in His holy temple,

The Lord’s throne is in heaven;

His eyes behold,

His eyelids test the sons of men.

The Lord tests the righteous,

But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.

David placed his trust in God to handle his enemies. For he believed his enemies, the wicked, would fail God’s tests and experience His vengeance, while the righteous would hold on to the Lord through their trials. This would produce trust in the Lord.

These verses reveal that God’s testings further one’s trust in the Lord. 

Your Value

David’s son, Solomon, perceived, like his father before him, the positives of God allowing testings in one’s life. He understood God cares for His people, not things.

Proverbs 17:3:

The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold,

But the Lord tests the hearts.

This proverb shows the value God places upon humanity as being much greater than silver and gold. Man values those precious metals, but God values us. The heat upon the refining pot separates the metal from the dross, purifying those two commodities. God’s tests refine His precious metals, us.

The Mind Test

The Lord uses the trials in our lives to test our hearts, as we are more valuable to Him than everything else. And as the following verses show, the Lord also tests the mind.

Jeremiah 17:9-10:

The heart is deceitful above all things,

And desperately wicked;

Who can know it?

I, the Lord, search the heart,

I test the mind,

Even to give every man according to his ways,

According to the fruit of his doings.

The prophet Jeremiah shows another facet of God testing us. Known as the weeping prophet, Jeremiah spoke the words the Lord told him to, but his contemporaries despised those words. God knows if we follow our heart’s desires, it will mislead us, as it is deceitful above all things. Jeremiah did not follow his heart, but the Lord’s heart.

That’s why God searches our hearts and tests our minds, giving to us according to His righteous judgment. With the pinnacle reward explained by Jesus’ brother James in James 1:12 (ESV):

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Testing Produces Faith

Abraham failed God’s tests many times during his walk. Two times calling his wife his sister (Genesis 12:12-13, Genesis 20:2-3) and heeding his wife’s advice to sleep with her handmaiden (Genesis 16:2-4). 

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m grateful the times I failed God’s tests are not documented for millennia like Abraham’s and other biblical heroes. For now, let’s focus on one of the most arduous biblical tests, one that Abraham passed, where he offered his son Isaac as a living sacrifice (Genesis 22), as discussed in Hebrews 11:17-19:

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

Abraham’s faith in God shone during excruciating circumstances, with God rewarding him as recorded in Genesis 22:16-18:

“By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son — blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

Abraham’s offering of his son, Isaac, offers a glimpse of Jesus’ sacrifice where God offered His only begotten son, Jesus, as the living sacrifice for humanity’s sins (John 3:16-17, 1 John 4:10).

Please God, Test Me?

Knowing God will test you and asking for His testing are two distinct ideas. The verses mentioned throughout this article prove the Lord will test you, not for His benefit, but for yours. 

As difficult as it may be, we should ask the Lord to test us, as the following verses show.

Psalm 26:2:

Examine me, O Lord, and prove me;

Try my mind and my heart.

Psalm 139:23-24:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me, and know my anxieties;

And see if there is any wicked way in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting.

These prayers of David express his understanding of humankind’s relation to God. John the Baptist recognized this and stated in John 3:30-31:

He must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. 

In our Christian walk, we need to live out the words of John the Baptist, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Where God needs to become our everything.

Does God Test Us?

Does God test us? Yes indeed, and we should even ask Him to search us and know us, as this testing produces steadfastness in our faith. For He is God and we are His creation, as the prophet Isaiah explains in Isaiah 64:8:

But now, O Lord, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand.

In God testing us, He strengthens our faith in Him for our physical and spiritual needs. God’s refinery removes the dross and chaff from our lives to become who He needs us to be; prepared for His return.

Jesus says in Revelation 22:12-13 that He is coming soon:

And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.

Lord, we wait with oil-filled lamps and trimmed wicks until Your return. Come, Lord Jesus, come.