To Test

Psalm 26

² Prove me, O Lord, and try me;
   test my heart and mind. 

Noami recently asked me if I thought God tests us. The question brought to mind a sermon preched by Dick Johnson. Dick Johnson was the priest at St Mary's Cypress, the first time we arrived in Houston. Though Dick is no longer a priest he preached some of the sermons which I find most memorable. 
Dick drew a verbal picture of an ancient metalworker heating his material in the great heat and with great skill forging an object of great wealth, beauty, or use, or even all three. The smith knew his metal, the heat revealed its compounds to his skilled eye and hand. His experience guided him him his use of that which was clasped in his tools. with skill he hammered and tapped,  manipulating the hot metal into that which he desired. 
In reality though a metal is tested to find its precious metal content. Great heat is used. Sometimes life is easy, everything goes to my plan. Sometimes it is more difficult. I would class moving across the Atlantic four times in this category; new house, new home, whatever the language. Burying a child too, an experience which we share with Dick.   Do they reveal the devotion of our heart and mind to God?