Passing Life's Tests

A courtroom, a wilderness, and the quiet courage of living honestly before God as we enter the season of Lent.

We live in an age that feels increasingly like a test.

Trust in public institutions is near historic lows; only about two in ten Americans say they trust the federal government most of the time. The World Economic Forum’s recent risk report names misinformation, polarization, and conflict among the greatest global threats shaping the years ahead. Health leaders warn of a growing epidemic of loneliness and disconnection that leaves many people feeling isolated even while constantly connected online.

Meanwhile, news cycles churn with conflict, political division, and public distrust. Technology makes it easier than ever to curate an image while hiding what is really going on inside. Many of us feel exhausted by the noise, unsure where truth lives anymore.

In such a world, it becomes harder to know what’s true, not only in society, but in ourselves.

Lent begins right here: not as an escape from reality, but as an invitation to face it honestly.

And for me, the meaning of that honesty always brings me back to a story from my own family.

A voice remembered for 28 years

On April 10, 1980, a man wearing a gorilla mask approached a car in a supermarket parking lot.

Inside the car, Helen and Michael Farr were counting the change from their purchase. Helen laughed when she realized she had two pennies left. They were about to pull out when the masked man yanked open the driver’s door and demanded money. Michael reached for his wallet.

The man shot him in the chest.

Helen jumped from the car and ran into the store for help, hearing a second gunshot behind her. Michael Farr — her husband of thirty-six years — died that day.

Police soon suspected a man named Steven Jenkins, but they couldn’t gather enough evidence to bring a conviction. The case went cold.

Years later Jenkins was jailed for another crime. He bragged to fellow inmates about getting away with the murder. One of his accomplices — though not present at the shooting — eventually came forward because his conscience had weighed on him for years.

After twenty-eight years, the case finally went to trial. Jenkins pled not guilty.

Helen Farr was called to testify. A cousin of mine on my mother’s side, she was ninety-four years old at that time. Frail in appearance but strong in voice, she told the story calmly and clearly from the witness stand. She had never seen the killer’s face because of the mask. Yet when the defendant spoke in court, she recognized his voice.

“How can you be sure?” she was asked.

Her answer was unforgettable:

“Because I have lived with that voice for twenty-eight years.”

After her testimony, the defendant changed his plea and confessed to voluntary manslaughter.

And then came a moment I still struggle to comprehend. Helen looked at the man who had murdered her husband and said:

“In my Christian spirit, I forgive him. But he will have to appear before a higher court, a higher judge than this one. And I hope in the meantime he asks forgiveness of the Lord.”

The weight of hidden truth

I can’t imagine living with the knowledge that I had taken a life and then bragged about it. How do you live with yourself?

And yet some of the scariest people we encounter are not violent criminals but people who seem untouched by conscience: people able to deceive without remorse, to live double lives without so much as a tremor of discomfort. It seems we are surrounded by such people these days.

But if we are honest, most of us know smaller versions of that temptation: hiding our failures, editing our stories, pretending things are fine when they are not.

This is where Psalm 32 speaks with startling clarity.

“While I held my tongue, my bones withered away.”

The psalmist describes what happens when truth is buried. Concealment erodes us from the inside.

And then comes the turning point:

“I acknowledged my sin… and you forgave me.”

The righteous, Scripture insists, are not perfect people. They are forgiven people — people willing to stop hiding.

The wilderness test

On the first Sunday in Lent, the Gospel places Jesus in the wilderness. After forty days of fasting, he is tempted, not with obvious evil, but with subtle distortions of good things.

Turn stones into bread.
Prove your worth.
Take authority without surrender.

Hunger. Identity. Purpose.

Physical, emotional, spiritual tests.

These are deeply familiar. We live in a culture that encourages instant gratification, constant self-validation, and influence without accountability. The temptations of the wilderness did not disappear; they simply changed form.

Jesus overcomes not through spectacle but through grounded truth — refusing shortcuts that would separate power from integrity.

Lent as an honesty practice

Lent is often misunderstood as a season of deprivation. But at its heart, it is a season of honesty.

We slow down long enough to ask difficult questions:

Where am I hiding?
What voice have I been living with for years?
What truth needs to come into the light?

The wilderness strips away distractions. There is nowhere to perform, nowhere to curate an image. Only truth, hunger, and trust remain.

Helen Farr lived with the echo of a voice for nearly three decades. Yet when the truth finally surfaced, she chose not revenge but honesty, forgiveness, and grace.

That is the astonishing possibility of the Christian life: confession and mercy can coexist.

What it means to pass the test

Perhaps “passing” life’s tests is not about flawless performance. Perhaps it means refusing to live a divided life. It means bringing what is hidden into the light — not because God desires shame, but because God desires wholeness.

The psalm ends with joy:

“Be glad, you righteous, and rejoice in the Lord.”

Joy, in this case, is not naïve happiness. It is the deep relief of no longer pretending.

On Ash Wednesday, as Lent began, we were marked with ashes and reminded that we are dust. But those ashes are traced in the shape of the cross, a sign that honesty does not end in condemnation, but in grace.

The wilderness awaits each of us. So do the tests.

But perhaps the real question is not whether we can avoid them, but whether we will walk through them truthfully.

And if we do, perhaps — as the Gospel quietly promises — we may discover that grace has been walking beside us all along.