Even German firefighters can’t keep kids from taking tests.
It all happened in Bocholt, Germany, a border city with the Netherlands and part of the administrative region of Düsseldorf. Teachers were preparing to give an end-of-the-year exam. The exams were stored in a safe (do they have a high crime rate where thieves steal tests?!?). When teachers went to retrieve the exams, they found that the safe lock had jammed. Regardless of how hard they tried, they could not get the safe to open. What will they do?
While students perhaps thought the greatest of all miracles had just taken place, teachers were determined to administer the final exam on this day. Cheers ringing from the students did not deter the teachers from calling the Fire Department. Now, the tables turn. After about an hour delay, the teachers are doing the cheering and the students are groaning. The Fire Department sawed the safe open, revealing the tests that the students still had to take.
I would imagine that there were not many students thanking the firefighters for their service!
Wouldn’t it be nice if we would find the safe locked and jammed and all our trials, troubles, and tests of life locked away inside? I’m certain that we wouldn’t be calling the Fire Department or anyone else, asking that those tests and trials would be released in order for us to take the exam. Instead, we would be cheering, singing “Oh, Happy Day,” “Count Your Blessings,” and “This Is The Day That The Lord Has Made.”
While we don’t relish the tests and trials of life, we have to admit that we need them. Our success or failure determines how we have grown in “the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” just like exams at school determine if we have grown in our knowledge of the subject.
Kids will often say that they can hardly wait to get out of school so that they don’t have to take any more tests! The adults know that the hardest tests are just around the corner. There is never a time where we stop taking tests.
Romans 5:3-5 reminds us, “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; (4) And patience, experience; and experience, hope: (5) And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Tests make us grow. When we grow, great things are developed in our lives.
It is impossible to lock the safe so securely that tests of life cannot get out. We might as well accept the fact that they are going to come. However, since we don’t know when they will come, we had better be studying all the time so that we can pass the tests. We need to open our Text Book, the Bible, and start cramming because the next test could be administered at any moment.
Pencils out? You may begin.
