God's Ten Tests: Which One Are You In Right Now?
Scripture describes recurring categories of testing every believer faces — see if you recognize your current season
This post is part of our
Basic Training! Stage 1 series.
“Welcome to Stage 1: Operation Purity”
If you’re in a genuinely difficult season, it can help to know you’re not experiencing something random or unprecedented. Scripture describes recognizable categories of testing that show up again and again in the lives of believers. Here are ten worth knowing.
1. The Test of Trust. Jesus’s most frequent correction to His disciples wasn’t about pride, anger, or moral failure — it was about faith. Where you turn in a moment of need reveals what you actually trust.
2. The Test of Pain and Silence. Suffering deepens dependence on God like almost nothing else can — but it’s often accompanied by God’s apparent silence at the exact moment comfort feels most needed. Even Jesus experienced this in His darkest hour.
3. The Test of Temptation. God never causes temptation, but He does allow it. This is the test most directly tied to any addictive struggle — familiar to nearly everyone, and rarely as easy to pass as it is to recognize.
4. The Test of Routine and Boredom. Some of the most significant figures in Scripture spent long, uneventful seasons in obscurity before stepping into their calling. Moses spent decades tending sheep before leading a nation. Ordinary, unremarkable time can be doing more spiritual work than it appears to.
5. The Test of Isolation. Moses in Midian. Elijah in the wilderness. Paul in Arabia. Feeling forgotten, distant from community, or unsupported at a critical moment is a pattern seen throughout Scripture — not a sign you’ve been abandoned.
6. The Test of Spiritual Warfare. Scripture describes real spiritual opposition, not just personal struggle. Ephesians 6:12 is explicit that the fight isn’t only against flesh and blood.
7. The Test of Identity. Who are you when the roles you’ve built your identity around — career, relationship status, achievements — are stripped away or feel uncertain? This test often exposes whether identity is rooted in Christ or in something more fragile.
8. The Test of Failure. Moses went from prince to fugitive shepherd. Even Jesus, in His humanity, faced apparent failure — unable to keep every follower, misunderstood even by those closest to Him. Failure is often the doorway to genuine humility.
9. The Test of Success. Success rarely feels like a test, which is exactly what makes it dangerous. Deuteronomy warns that comfort and abundance can quietly erode dependence on God (8:10-14) — success can be just as spiritually risky as hardship.
10. The Test of Intimacy. Perhaps the deepest and most difficult test of all: staying genuinely close to God day in and day out, especially when His presence feels quiet rather than dramatic. This test underlies nearly every other one on this list.
Recognizing Your Test
If you’re in the middle of a real struggle right now, there’s a good chance it falls into one — or several — of these categories. Recognizing which test you’re in doesn’t make it easier, but it does mean you’re not lost or forgotten. You’re in familiar territory that believers before you have walked through and come out the other side of.
Adapted from Pureheart Ministry’s Basic Training! Stage 1: Operation Purity
Copyright ©2023 Timothy Davis