Is it a Test or a Trap?

Knowing how your enemy moves is just as important as knowing who he is! This week's prayer cues help us strengthen our discernment to understand when God is working to confirm us and when the enemy is trying to derail us.

Author

Jennifer Paulino
May 21, 2025

Warm-up:

Before chains broke and doors opened, Paul and Silas were tested. Not just by the prison, but by the pressure to stay silent, to fold, to give up on their assignment because the cost felt too high. But instead, they worshipped through the weight. What looked like captivity was actually confirmation. Their obedience under pressure became the stage for someone else’s salvation. That’s not just endurance—that’s what testing produces when it’s met with trust.

Feature Story

Test, Trust, Approve?

Couldn’t find a ram, so here’s a Donkey!

Tests don’t always show up as obvious trials.

Sometimes they wear the face of delay, discouragement, or subtle temptation. What God allowed in that prison cell with Paul and Silas wasn’t punishment—it was proof.

A proving ground for the power He had already placed inside them.

This week, we’re shifting perspective: not every hard thing is an attack.

Some of it is divine training.

The challenge isn’t just surviving the test—it’s recognizing it.

Because God doesn’t play games with our lives, but He does allow testing to shape us.

In Genesis 22, when God tested Abraham, it wasn’t to crush him—it was to confirm him. The Hebrew word used there literally means “to prove, to examine.” It wasn’t a setup for failure—it was a setup for faith.

And that’s the difference between testing and temptation: one produces growth, the other breeds guilt.

God tests to refine. The enemy tempts to ruin.

I’ve learned that the hard way. There’s a word God’s been speaking to me for years—something sacred, something weighty. And ever since He spoke it, temptation has kept showing up.

Quiet, loud, sometimes dressed like the very thing I thought I wanted.

I haven’t always passed. But over time, through every round, God has been refining me.

Now—for the first time—I feel strong enough to flee, not flirt. To discern, not just react. That didn’t come from striving. It came from testing—and God’s mercy in the middle of it.

Prayer Points

Wisdom, Strength, Execution

Before we pray, let this settle: tests aren’t meant to expose your failure…they’re meant to reveal your faith.

The goal isn’t perfection, it’s posture. And when you let God walk with you through the pressure, He’ll always produce more than you thought was in you. Let’s pray.

  1. God, give me discernment.
    Help me recognize what’s from You and what’s meant to distract or destroy me. Don’t let me confuse testing with temptation.

  2. God, give me strength to flee from temptation.
    Make me more loyal to my future than my feelings. Help me shut doors I once left cracked open.

  3. God, help me resist the enemy.
    Cover me in Your Word, steady my mind, and remind me that resistance isn’t weakness—it’s warfare.

❝

Fire tests the purity of silver and gold,

but the Lord tests the heart.

— Proverbs 17:3

Until next week,

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