To prove something is to test it. Therefore, to reprove someone is to retest them. When I was preparing to go to college for my undergraduate degree, I took the ACT and the SAT three times each, trying to scrape out higher scores. When I was recently preparing to go back to school for a law degree, I also took the LSAT three times, again trying to improve my scores. I’m sure that I am not unique in wanting to retake tests when the option is available. Thankfully, while each of us are subject to many tests in life, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we all have the chance to retake those tests. In fact, retaking tests, or reproofs are pretty much what this whole life is about. “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:” (Proverbs 6:23). Reproofs are the way of life. Failing a test can seem like the end of the road, but that would only be true if we weren’t allowed to retake them. We should not draw conclusions that we are fundamentally incapable of passing a test just because so far we haven’t succeeded. Thomas Edison retook the test of inventing a workable lightbulb a thousand times before he finally passed that test. If our family members or our coworkers are testing our patience and we continue to fail, rather than bitterly wishing that they could simply be blasted off of the face of the earth so we no longer have to put up with their nonsense, we can be grateful that they are giving us more and more chances to pass the test. “Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities.” (Psalms 141:5). The fact that the Lord continues to send the same tests to us over and over again means that He has not given up on us and loves us enough to keep reproving us until we get to the point where we can pass the test. I hope that none of us will give up on ourselves or despair when we repeatedly fail the same tests. Reproofs are the way of life. We will continue to be tested and retested our whole lives through, not because we are poor students but because eternal life is nothing more or less than constant and neverending improvement, which can only be done by being reproved and retested to higher and higher standards.
