Life Is a Test: Suffering and the Meaning of Life

There’s a kind of honesty that sounds cruel at first but turns out to be exactly what people need to hear.

In 1914, Ernest Shackleton reportedly placed an advertisement in a London newspaper for his Antarctic expedition. The ad read something like this: Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success. Whether the ad is apocryphal or not, the story endures because it captures something true about human nature — the brutal honesty of it didn’t drive people away. It drew them in. Something in us responds to a call that tells the truth about the cost, because when the stakes are real, the reward is real too.

I want to make a similar case here. What I’m about to say might sound harsh — but I think it’s exactly what people need to hear. Life contains real tests. Your choices have real, eternal consequences. The suffering you’re going through right now is the very place where that test is being administered. And the outcome of that test is not just about whether you become a better person or whether God uses your pain for some greater good down the road. The outcome could be about heaven or hell.

I genuinely believe that hard truth is actually more encouraging and steadying for the person lying in a hospital bed than anything they’ll typically hear from a Christian trying to explain their suffering. Not because it’s easy — it isn’t. But because it’s real. And people who are suffering don’t need comfortable half-answers. They need to know that what they’re going through actually matters, that there is a real enemy trying to use their pain against them, and that there is a real and eternal reward waiting for those who endure faithfully even unto death.

But we need to build the case carefully. So let’s start at the beginning.

Everything Downstream of One Conviction

Before we get to suffering, we have to talk about the theological premise that makes all of this necessary.

If once saved, always saved (OSAS) is true, then nothing in this post matters much. Whatever you do, however you behave in your suffering, the end is secured. But if OSAS isn’t true — if free will really matters and your choices genuinely have eternal consequences — then everything changes.

Free will, when you actually believe in it, is a serious thing. It’s much more comfortable to believe it’s all going to work out no matter what you do. But if your choices really matter, then the question of what your suffering means stops being merely pastoral or philosophical. It becomes urgent. It becomes a matter of life and death.

What the Bible Actually Says About Testing

There are not one or two isolated verses about testing in the Bible. There is a consistent, pervasive, Old Testament-to-New Testament pattern of God explicitly testing people to see what they will do.

The Old Testament Pattern

Genesis 22:11–12 — When Abraham raised the knife over his son and the angel of the Lord stopped him, God’s own explanation for what had just happened was this:

“Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

Deuteronomy 8:2 — Moses, looking back on forty years in the wilderness, gives us the interpretive key for that entire season of Israel’s history:

“You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”

The wilderness, in its totality, was a test. The explicit goal was to find out what was in their hearts — whether they would obey or not. And it’s worth pausing here to remember that many people failed that test catastrophically. The earth swallowed some of them. Others were destroyed. This was not a test with automatic grace for failure. The consequences were real.

Deuteronomy 13:3 — On false prophets who might arise and perform signs:

“You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Judges 3:4 — On the pagan nations left in Canaan after the conquest:

“They were for testing Israel, to find out if they would obey the commandments of the LORD, which He had commanded their fathers through Moses.”

God left nations there — nations that would tempt Israel toward idolatry, toward compromise, toward sin — on purpose, as a test, to see what Israel would do. The surrounding culture is not an obstacle to the test. The surrounding culture is the test.

Exodus 16:4 — Even the manna in the wilderness was a test:

“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction.’”

2 Chronicles 32:31 — Of King Hezekiah:

“Even in the matter of the envoys of the rulers of Babylon, who sent to him to inquire of the wonder that had happened in the land, God left him alone only to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart.”

Jeremiah 17:10 — A summary statement from God Himself:

“I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.”

The Book of Job: The Test Laid Bare

Job is the Old Testament’s most transparent window into why testing happens and what is actually at stake. We get to see the backstage conversation that usually remains hidden.

Here is Job: blameless, upright, fearing God, turning away from evil. And Satan comes before the Lord with a charge. The charge is not that Job is a sinner. The charge is that Job’s righteousness is bought — that he serves God only because God blesses him. Take away the blessing, Satan says, and Job will curse God to his face.

What is at stake in the book of Job? Exactly one thing: whether Job will sin. That’s it. Everything — the loss of his children, his wealth, his health, the horrific suffering of his body — is all organized around that single question. Will he sin? Will he curse God?

And the answer, at the end, is: “In all this, Job did not sin.”

Job passes. And I believe one of the reasons he passes — is that what God initially says about him is true, he has a genuine fear of God. He knows, in some form, that sin has real consequences in the afterlife. m

The New Testament Raises the Stakes

The New Testament picks up this testing theme and sharpens it.line.

James 1:12:

“Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”

This is an if-then statement with eternity on both sides. Once he has been approved — that approval is not guaranteed. The blessing is conditional on perseverance. The crown of life is what’s at stake.

Luke 8:13 — Jesus himself, explaining the Parable of the Sower:

“Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away.”

Jesus is not describing unbelievers who never responded to the gospel. He is describing people who heard, who received the word with joy, who believed. These are people who had a genuine response to the message of the kingdom — and then, in time of temptation, fell away.

1 Thessalonians 3:4–5 — Paul writing to the Thessalonians about why he sent Timothy to check on them:

“For indeed when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction… For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you, and our labor would be in vain.”

This passage is a remarkable window into how Paul actually thought about suffering and temptation. Notice what he was afraid of. Not that the Thessalonians had become discouraged. Not that they had lost hope or grown weary. He was afraid that the tempter had gotten to them — that Satan had used their suffering as an opportunity, and that their faith had not survived it. And notice what that would have meant: Paul’s labor would have been in vain. Not diminished. Not partially wasted. Vain.

Revelation 2:10:

“Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

These are Christians. They are going to suffer. They are going to be tested. And the instruction is: be faithful until death. The implication of that instruction is clear — faithfulness is required, and its absence has consequences. The crown of life is not promised to those who simply endure passively. It is promised to those who are faithful in the endurance.

The Two Typical Explanations Of Suffering — And What They Miss

When Christians suffer, there are typically two explanations offered, both of them biblical, both of them true, and both of them incomplete.

The first is Romans 8:28 — God is going to work this together for good. Something redemptive will come out of this. You don’t know what He’s doing, but He’s doing something. He’s going to use your cancer, your loss, your crisis, to accomplish something good in this world.

The second is the refining explanation — suffering is the fire that purifies gold. It is producing something in you. Romans 5:3–4:

“We also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope.”

Both of these are real. Both are biblical. I’m not dismissing either of them.

But here is the problem: both of them are almost entirely this-life-focused. God is going to use this for good — for someone, somewhere, in this world. Or: this is going to make you a better, more complete person in this life. The application is horizontal.

But we need the third explanation — not to replace the other two, but to complete them. And it is this: this suffering is often a test of whether you will sin in the midst of that suffering or not, and the outcome of that test has eternal consequences.

What Is Actually Being Tested

Here is something that almost nobody in modern Christianity is talking about: when you are suffering, you are often being tempted to sin.

Satan’s weapon of choice is suffering, because suffering is where we are most vulnerable — when everything is taken away, when the body is in pain, when the losses mount and the isolation deepens, that is when the temptations hit hardest.

The first and most obvious temptation is bitterness toward God. It usually doesn't start with outright cursing — it starts with a question. Why is He doing this to me? What did I do to deserve this? Where is God in all of this? That spiral, if you follow it long enough, ends in the same place Job's wife ended up: cursing the God who allowed the suffering. Satan will push on this one with everything he has, because it's his easiest win.

But when that doesn’t work, he changes tactics. He goes after unforgiveness. In any prolonged suffering event — a long illness, a financial collapse, a broken relationship — there are going to be micro-betrayals. Doctors who make mistakes. Friends who don’t show up. Family members who say the wrong thing. People who were supposed to help and didn’t. And Satan is going to use every single one of those as a wedge.

Unforgiveness is not a minor matter in the New Testament. Jesus says it plainly, more than once, if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you.

Satan will also come after you with sensuality, with anger, with the temptation to numb the pain in ways that lead to death. He is prowling around looking for whom he may devour, and suffering is his hunting ground.

The Hard Truth Is the Encouraging Truth

Now I want to come back to where we started. Because everything I’ve said so far might sound grim. Life is a test. Suffering is a temptation mechanism. Your choices matter. Hell is on the line.

That sounds like bad news. But I want to argue that it is, in a profound and perhaps surprising way, the most encouraging thing a person in the midst of suffering can hear.

The person who is dying of cancer, who has been told by everyone around them that God is going to work this together for good, who has been reassured that God loves them and has a plan — that person is still in pain. And the reassurance, as well-intentioned as it is, doesn’t reach them in the place where they most need to be reached. Because the suffering is not mostly about God’s plan for the world. The suffering is happening to them, now, in their body, in their life, today.

But now tell that person the other thing. Tell them: what you do in this suffering matters. Your soul is on the line. Satan is coming for you right now, and he wants you to curse God, to hold on to unforgiveness, to give up. And if you fight him — if you endure faithfully — you will receive the crown of life. And not just the crown of life in some abstract doctrinal sense, but the real thing: an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, something no eye has seen and no ear has heard.

Paul says it plainly in 2 Corinthians 4:17:

“For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

The Narrow Road and the Shape of This Age

Let me say something about the bigger picture, because the testing framework isn’t just about individual suffering events. It’s about what this age — this whole period of human history — actually is.

The earth, as originally intended, was not a test, or at least not in the way it is now.

Something was disrupted when the enemy entered the picture and death entered the world through sin. What we are living in now — this broken, painful, morally charged existence — is not Plan A. It is the working out of a cosmic disruption, and God is, as He always does, working even that together for good.

And the good He is working toward is this: He is choosing people. He is identifying, out of the whole of humanity, those who will pass through the narrow gate. Very few find it. Jesus is explicit about this:

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13–14)

This is a choosing ground. That’s what this age is. The ones who pass through — who endure faithfully, who keep their allegiance to King Jesus — they are not just kingdom citizens. They are heirs. Paul says it: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. That is a designation beyond what any of us can fully comprehend.

What comes next — what these heirs are being prepared for — is something about which the Bible says: “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9)

Think about what eternity actually means. In eight hundred million years — in ten trillion years — the people who passed through this narrow road, who endured faithfully in this brief and brutal training ground, will still be alive, still be who they are, still be the ones who endured. This age — this whole age — will be looked back on as the early days.

The mythical time when a cosmic rebellion happened and God, rather than simply undoing it, used it to call out a people for Himself. And not just any people — heirs. Sons and daughters. Those who passed through something the angels never faced: a free will gauntlet, a world filled with suffering and temptation and real consequences.

There is reason to think that what comes out of this age is something greater than what existed before it — beings who are not merely created righteous, but proven righteous. Who chose God when they didn't have to. That may be precisely why Paul says we will judge angels.

What Faithfully Enduring Through Suffering Actually Looks Like

I want to be specific about what it means to endure faithfully, because it is not passive. It is not gritting your teeth and surviving. It is active warfare.

When Satan comes at you and tells you to hate the person who wronged you: you love them instead. You forgive them. Not because it feels good — it won’t — but because you know what is at stake. When Satan comes at you and tells you to start drinking again, to give in to whatever the flesh is drawn toward in the darkness: you resist him. James 4:7: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” That promise is real, and it is for people who are fighting, not coasting.

The Gospel of the King and the Only Response That Makes Sense

All of this leads back to the gospel — the actual gospel, not the reduced version.

The gospel is not primarily “Jesus died so your sins are forgiven.” That is part of it. But the full announcement is: Jesus Christ is the King of the universe. He has been raised from the dead and enthroned. He reigns. And the appropriate response to that announcement is allegiance — bending the knee, pledging your loyalty to him as King.

And if he is your King, then the next thing you do is ask what he wants. You open Matthew. You read the Sermon on the Mount. You hear what the King says about how to live, and you do it, because he is your King and that is what allegiance means.

The end of the Sermon on the Mount says it plainly:

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell — and great was its fall.” (Matthew 7:24–27)

The floods are coming. The winds are coming. Suffering is coming. And the only question is whether you’ve built on the rock of obedience to the King or the sand of believing that it doesn’t really matter what you do.

It matters. It matters enormously. And the good news — the genuinely good news — is that you are not alone in the fight. The King knows you are being tested. He has passed through his own test and emerged victorious. He has sent his Spirit as a deposit and a help. He does not want you to perish. He is testing you because he loves you and because he is choosing you, and his deepest desire is that you pass.

A Word on Failing Tests — and God’s Patience

I want to make sure I’m not being misunderstood here, because this is important.

When I say that these tests are pass-fail and that hell is on the line, I am not saying that if you fail a test, that’s it — you’re done, you’re going to hell. That is not how this usually works.

God does not want anyone to perish. That isn’t a platitude — it’s a theological conviction that shapes everything about how He deals with us. He is patient. He is long-suffering. And because of that, He keeps sending tests. He keeps giving opportunities. He is, in a very real sense, rooting for you to pass.

Think about Israel in the wilderness. They failed constantly. They failed spectacularly. And God kept working with them, kept pursuing them, kept offering another chance. The tests didn’t stop after the first failure, or the fifth, or the fiftieth.

But here’s the other side of that: there are only so many years in your life. There are only so many opportunities. A life is a finite thing, and eventually the tests stop

This is why the urgency matters. Not because one failure condemns you, but because patterns form, and habits harden, and the person who keeps failing the same test — who keeps choosing sin when the pressure comes — is moving in a direction. And that direction has a destination. The good news is that you can change direction at any point. The door is open. But it will not be open forever.

So if you have been failing your tests — if suffering has made you bitter, if you have been holding onto unforgiveness, if you have been running toward sin instead of away from it — this is not a eulogy. This is a warning with an invitation attached. God is still testing you because He still wants you to pass. The fact that you are still here, still reading this, is itself evidence of His patience.

Don’t waste it.

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