Is Life Really A Test?

What does it mean to be tested? Testing is an assessment intended to measure the respondents’ knowledge or other abilities.

From a conceptual standpoint it means to reveal a person’s thinking on the matter. This is in contrast to the traditional school environs of multiple-choice testing against the textbook or a standard.

Life is not a multiple-choice lab of experiences. Learning comes in the form of self-discovery, not in guessing an instructor’s thoughts. Unlike math, which is a function of absolutes, except in academia, too often students are not tested on thinking capability but rather on getting the ‘so-called’ right answer.

Consider the emotions of the students when, after giving an answer, the teacher says “explain your position.” Such questions are typically a way to indicate the students’ answer is wrong, so students will change their answer in order to be more in line with what they think the teacher wants.

Once during a Home Teaching discussion, I asked a Young Single Adult man what his intentions were towards a mission. Trying not to offend me, he meandered for a minute or two trying to say what he thought would please me while at the same time being careful not to commit to serving a mission.

It was funny and sad at the same time. He had no intention of serving a mission, but he was conditioned to passing the test. When I stopped his ramblings and gave him permission to tell me he wasn’t serving a mission, his shoulders visibly relaxed and he talked for five minutes about his work and what he wants to become.

What does it mean to be proved herewith to see if they do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them? (Abraham 3:25)

In the process of our mortal probation, we search for right answers. If God treated us like the education system, we would all go to hell, metaphorically speaking. In the classroom of life, when a student doesn’t answer the question correctly, God allows him to make the proper corrections by delegating thinking back to us.

Mortality is not a multiple-choice test, but rather, we are given permission to explore, question, test, brain storm, and discover different possibilities other than the standard answers accepted by the mediocrity of the accepted.

Through natural consequences, the light of Christ, and the Holy Ghost, we are asked to defend our position. Those who are honest in heart and mind will discover a different answer, or a more clear answer that expands the awareness of the student.

In the classroom, the teacher takes her RED pen and marks a big X or check mark next to the wrong answer as compared to the accepted. No feedback or thinking. You are wrong, next question. No self-discovery or dialogue. When improvement is governed based upon a subjective standard, any thinking or behavior outside the standard deviation is considered bad and unacceptable.

Therefore, hyper kids whose minds and bodies are in constant motion are penalized because the standard rules favor docility and compliance and frown upon the deviancy of different. God set up the Plan of Happiness as an awareness process, the greater the awareness, the greater the happiness.

Awareness is a function of what has been learned and processed. Awareness is thwarted when the teacher, the parent, or the leader dams the discussion or process of learning in any way.

Another damming aspect is the subjectivity of the human teacher. We rarely question the accepted and too often brilliant ideas that stem forth from innocent minds are eradicated because the teacher doesn’t understand the adjacent possible.

Consider the sinking of the Titanic. When the ship struck the iceberg, the call to abandon ship eventually went out, however, not everybody was able to get into a lifeboat. What would have happened had someone suggested the idea of getting on the iceberg?

The accepted idea was that the iceberg was not the solution it was the problem. What are the adjacent possibilities to this scenario? People could be shuttled from the Titanic to the iceberg until help arrived. They had sufficient time.

When discussing the gospel, the accepted is that God and Jesus are the same being. At least that is what the majority of Christian churches teach, yet very few people find that a logical function of their dogma. What is the adjacent possibility if an investigator questions the accepted?

When the accepted is questioned, the investigator receives a greater awareness and discovers that God has a perfected body, resurrected and exalted. So does His Son. They are two separate Beings and the scriptures in Genesis are now a logical rendition of the creative process. There is no room for reason or common sense in the Trinity explanation when inserted into the doctrine as found in scripture.

The test for each investigator is to judge the story of Joseph Smith and eventually Jesus Christ. If they accept the story, then they are given further tests to determine their willingness to allow their will to be swallowed up in the Will of the Father. The Word of Wisdom, tithing, callings, and the greatest test of all, not getting offended within the first year of membership, are all tests to be overcome and mastered.

Testing, in the Lord’s way, is then a function of becoming aware of truth. When we stray from the path of discovery, He allows us to learn and grow from our answers, which come in the form of actions, words, behaviors, and willingness to act. He gives us permission to take the test again and again. We call this process repentence.

When we choose not to learn, we commence the process of atrophying our talents and lose the awareness we once had. The more aware we become, the more He can give us. Each of us is tested based upon our ability to absorb truth and make the necessary adjustment to our direction.

If, at the end of our probation we are found headed in the right direction, we have been promised a celestial reward. We are not graded on the curve, for each of us has been given a different set of skills and challenges to work with. Therefore, what is right for you is not the same right for me, given our place along the path to perfection and complete awareness.

Today, I taught a Sunday school lesson to the 16-year-old class. A by-product of poor teaching is the inability of children to learn how to answer questions they are not accustomed to hearing. Questions that require critical thinking, an awareness of what’s going on in the story, and the ability to clarify what is not understood can become stumbling blocks and out of context when the accepted is mediocrity.

It’s been a number of years since I’ve taught at this level, and the insight of my lesson is how dumbed down our youth can become when they are not held to a higher level of learning within the context of the gospel.

Direct questions from the scriptures with corollary insights can overwhelm even the brightest of minds when not conditioned to learning in the classroom of the spirit in harmony with the tools of self-discovery.