This Life is a Test

I believe that this life is a test. A test to see what we really believe and what it is our heart truly desires.

And the test has to be a blind test. Because I believe in eternal progression. I believe that we lived with God before we came to this earth and that we chose to come here and be tested and prove ourselves worthy of more. Because the goal is to continue to progress to be come more and more like our Heavenly Father.

Now you don't get that kind of power with out proving yourself worthy of it.

Think of the Grand Vizier in every story you've ever read. Theres something about the staff and funky hat that makes them .... nutty. And of course, in the stories they never ever show their true colors to the face of the king/sultan/ruler. You can only see their true colors when they're on their own. When they think they're truley alone, then the cackling starts.

I think this is an amusing illustration of an eternal truth. In order for God to bless us with greater light, truth and knowledge we have to prove ourselves worthy of it. And in order for the test to be valid we have to be alone. Or rather we have to forget that we are never alone. We need to have that knowledge taken from us so that when given situations where we can chose right and wrong, our true nature is revealed. If we knew now what we knew then, that God is omniscient, the test would be invalid. The Grand Vizier never cackles in the master's presence. And he probably wasn't always a cackler. It took that little bit of heady power to make him show his true colors.

And whats worse, even though God is omnicient - we're not. And to be just, He has to allow us the opportunity to try and to fail or pass. He can't punish us for what we might have done if we'd not been stopped. Likewise He can't reward us for what we might have done if we'd had the chance. Thats not how the system works.

Imagine a promotion system at work where a brand new supervisor, with no outside input, declares who gets promotions, and who gets fired based on what they "know" the employees would do, with out ever having seen the employees work. Ever. Thats lunacy. Nobody would ever do it.

Likewise I believe we come to this earth to prove our hearts, to ourselves and to our God. I think that when we are born a veil of forgetfulness is placed over our minds so that we have no choice but to act for ourselves and to walk by faith. We're given the Light of Christ - that urge in the heart of every man, woman and child to do good. That whispers to your heart of a higher and nobler home and of joy and peace. We are tempted by Satan, who is jealous and miserable and like all miserable beings desires the misery of others. And we can chose for ourselves which voice we want to follow. To give in to temptation and follow the darkness or to remember what we once knew and follow the light.

The heart yearns for what it has lost even if it can't remember it. Its that void we all seek to fill and we all try a million different ways to fill the space. Telling ourselves that the void can be filled if we just get the next thing. But that void can't be filled by the mundane. That void is the knowledge that God lives and loves you. That peace and happiness that can only come through following the promptings of the Spirit and finding light and truth.

Faith is the first step. You take it into the darkness and discover the truth that there is light. You then have knowledge. Likewise every great explorer and scientist had to have a belief, a faith that there was more, that knowledge and light was just around the corner even though others thought they were crazy. And yet they took the leap and their discoveries made history. To me all truth is truth, whether eternal/spiritual or scientific. It all works in harmony. Theories can disagree but truth is always harmonious.

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For the record this post is a completely separate thought train from my last post. I just had a bee in my bonnet.