And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. — Genesis 22:1
There are a lot of lessons that I have learned in life. Some of those lessons came at the hands of life itself. I was making my own path through life and sometimes I had to learn difficult lessons as I made wrong decisions. Other times, those decisions came at the hands of those who loved me.
For example, there were many times that my parents would let me learn a difficult lesson growing up. They knew that the decision I made or what I was going to do would have a bad result. But they also knew that I would learn a more important lesson if they let me go through with it on my own.
A lot of people in life will tell you that God will never tempt you or put you through things. They want you to believe that God loves you and will simply make an easy path for you. Genesis 22:1 tells us that’s not true. It clearly says that God purposefully tempted Abraham. He put a difficulty in front of Abraham to help Abraham learn a lesson.
This was not Satan doing something to Abraham, it was the God who loved him. It was the same God who was guiding him through life. Yet, Abraham found himself learning a challenging lesson at the hand of God. God knew that Abraham needed the challenge for a specific reason and purpose.
Just because you are facing a test of life, it does not mean that it is necessarily Satan trying to disrupt or tempt you. That can certainly be the case, but sometimes, even God puts challenges in front of us. He knows when we need to learn a difficult lesson and will place those times in front of us to help us grow. Don’t get discouraged because you face challenges. Be thankful that God is still working to help you grow!
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