God tests our heart
(1 Chr 29:17 NIV) I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things have I given willingly and with honest intent. And now I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here have given to you.
God wants the trials to reveal the true condition of our heart. Is our heart bitter? Is our heart filled with impatience? Do we continue to submit to His sovereignty?
God tests our obedience
(Exo 16:4 NIV) Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.
God put us through trials to see if we continue to obey Him despite the difficulties in doing so.
God tests our faith
(James 1:2-3 NIV) Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, {3} because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
(Num 13:31-33 NIV) But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” {32} And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. {33} We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
It is absolutely necessary that we respond in faith when God puts us to the test. When God tested the Israelites whether they would believe Him to help them enter the promised land, they failed. As a result, the tests went on for another forty years.
(Num 32:11-13 NIV) ‘Because they have not followed me wholeheartedly, not one of the men twenty years old or more who came up out of Egypt will see the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob– {12} not one except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they followed the LORD wholeheartedly.’ {13} The Lord’s anger burned against Israel and he made them wander in the desert forty years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in his sight was gone.