Psalms 26:2-3 Test me, LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind; for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.
During WWII, prisoners of the Germans were forced to labor in camps, often supporting the war effort. Their lives meant little to their captors. It was all about the bottom line, keeping up production, meeting the quotas.
For ancient Israel in captivity in Egypt, it was much the same. Making bricks without the straw provided by the state, meant an almost impossible demand. Without the straw to bind the mud together, the bricks were almost useless.
When forced to labor on someone else’s behalf, the outcome is less than optimal. The numbers might be there at the end of the day, but the workers themselves have born the brunt of the cost of production. They have poured their own blood, sweat and tears into the product.
Are we aware of the production of godly character in our lives? Our lives are supposed to have an outcome, more than just a home playing a harp in the ‘by and by.’ Our lives are supposed to matter in the here and now.
Our text gives us a key component of the production of godly character in our lives. It involves taking exams! Well, it really involves showing up for the exams that the LORD brings into our lives. He is the one examining our lives. We are under his microscope. And it isn’t a multiple choice test!
And how are we to prepare for these exams? We do it by keeping our mind full of his unfailing love. This isn’t about eating a cereal called “God’s Unfailing Love” from your local store. It is about keeping an active memory recording of the times the LORD has been faithful to you and to the people of God. It is about repeatedly chewing those memories until they are what our mind turns to when we go on autopilot in our thinking.
We must learn to think about these things, rather than the worry and anxiety that has engulfed so many these days. And the cushier our lives have become, the fewer the actual things to worry about, the more our anxiety rises. This happens when we lose sight of his faithfulness.
Some people keep a journal of the faithfulness of the LORD. They keep track, often day by day, of the good things that happen, the things that show the faithfulness of the LORD in their lives. They add the faithfulness seen in Scripture, those that show up in answer to prayer, and those that just show up because of his goodness to us.
And then they chew on those incidents, repeatedly, in good times and rough times. Then when the examination team shows up, our minds are already tuned into the goodness of the LORD, and the exam answers pour from a heart filled with Him.
The Arnold Journey 