Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham... (Gen 22,1)

Why did God want to test the man who was closest to Him in all the earth? Wouldn't it have been more logical for Him to make his path easier, to shower him with favor and to test others for whom there was much more reason to separate the wheat from the chaff?

In everyday life, students are tested most often. Even craftsmen have their final exams before they are allowed to practice their craft, doctors have to pass attestations so that it is sure they know how to practice medicine. Examinations are the gateway to something subsequent, higher - and this is also true on God's path.

The pattern of PROMISE - TEST - BLESSING is repeated over and over in Scripture. God will present His way to man and give him a promise to go with it, but then man goes through a certain test, beyond which he receives the promised blessing. In fact, the whole Bible can be seen through this prism: man is offered the highest existence in Paradise, but he must first prove his choice in the test in which Adam failed. We now attain eternity through the grace of Jesus Christ, but if we look at it from the perspective of man, then our earthly life is a form of trial in which we repeatedly, in different situations and stages of life, choose Christ or ourselves, the heavenly or the temporal. If we pass the test, we receive the blessing of "what eye has not seen and ear has not heard, God has prepared for those who love him."

The formula of PROMISE - TEST - BLESSING also applies to the partial episodes of life. We grow and achieve blessing in them after we have triumphed in them, usually by preferring God's way in one area or another after some personal struggle. (The episode of the arid desert that the Israelites had to pass through before entering the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey is perhaps the most well-known picture of this principle in the Old Testament.) We may not find the period of testing pleasant, but if we persevere, we will find that a new blessing from above will then open up for us.

Abraham has changed enormously over the years. He has been tested several times and has stood - not always, but often. Now he is to be tested again. Not because God wants to "find something wrong" in him, but to shower him with even greater blessings thereafter. Moreover, as we shall see later, his test has another, very specific dimension.

If all the good things were cheap to buy, they would not be worth much in the end.