Tests?!?

A friend and I are going to start the Beth Moore Study Esther next week.  We both felt like we needed a Bible study, and felt like we would be a good match as far as accountability and where we are.  We went to the Lifeway book store last night and looked around (by the way, I could spend a fortune in that store, I love books!) and I found these prayer cards.  I think it is a fantastic idea to meditate on a prayer every day.  There were several different "focused" prayers (faith, victory, hope) but I think the one I am struggling the very most with is faith.  So, I picked up the box and decided to try and read one of the prayers every day and focus my mind and heart on it.  To really pray it and plead with God to build my faith.  What I wasn't prepared for was this:

"Test me, O Lord, and try me, Examine my heart and my mind; for Your love is ever before me, and I desire to walk continually in Your truth." (Psalm 26:3)


TEST ME?!  Nope, didn't really want to pray or meditate on that.  Feel pretty sure that I have been tested enough.  But have I?  Have my heart and my mind shown to have a desire to "continually walk in HIS truth?"  UGH, maybe I do need to be tested a little more!?  Dontcha hate it when He's right!?  Sometimes I do (if we are being honest here). 

I always joke that I have never intentionally prayed for patience because I know that God doesn't just wave a magic wand and grant patience.  He tests us and puts us in positions to exercise patience and then we grow it and He cultivates it us.  I think the same is true of strength and faith.  I want to have Faith.  He is/has put me in situations to test my faith, to cultivate my faith, where I have to choose faith.  Situations where it's not easy to throw my hands in the air in praise. 

If that's what it takes...then yes, *sigh* test me, Lord.  I want to have bigger, stronger, greater Faith in you!  I want to walk blindly, knowing without doubt that my steps are ordered by you and that though the terrain may be rocky and unsteady you have marked the course.  I am at a crossroads and I have no idea which direction to turn.  Test me and teach me and show me where to turn!  Grow bigger faith in me! 

Have a good day!  Check out the prayer cards and also, I bought this book of 100 Days of Prayer for Women.  I read the first day today and it all tied in nicely.  It was about being STILL and listening.  How much I need to do that!  Check it out!