"But Even If HE Does Not"

"Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.  If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and He will rescue us from your hand, O king.  But even if He does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." Daniel 3:16-18 (Emphasis added)

This may be one of the biggest proclamations of faith in the Bible.  I am awed by the strength through faith these three men exhibited even in the face of death.  The level of their understanding and complete trust in God's sovereignty is something that I pray I will one day possess.  They demonstrated confidence in God's power to save them from certain death, yet understood that God alone makes the decisions regarding who to rescue.

While reading these words I'm inspired by two of their phrases.  "The God we serve is able to save us from it. . . . But even if He does not."  Our God is able to do anything, but sometimes He chooses not to act.  His purpose in what He does or does not do, without a doubt, is beyond our understanding.  But God doesn't ask us to understand His purpose behind His actions, rather He calls on us to trust Him with complete dependence in His perfect plan.  Think about it, if God immediately came to our rescue every time we called on Him, we wouldn't have a need for faith.  People would be jumping in line just to have the protection of an "insurance plan" of sorts, thinking that since God is on their side nothing bad will ever happen to them.  I'll bet that anyone reading this post can think of at least one bad thing that has happened in their life.  If you are a follower of Christ, you are guaranteed hardships in life. 1 Peter 1:6-7 says, "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."  Yes, life may be hard at times, but we have the promise that our suffering serves a purpose.  The refining process is never pleasant, however when yielded to God, it always produces a beautiful testimony that reveals Christ's glory.

There comes a point in time in most of our lives when we need to say, "I know God is able to bring me out of this dark phase of life, but even if He decides to wait, I will continue to trust His plan because He is good."  Believe me, that's not easy.  Only through God's strength have I been able to make that statement in my own life.  I have said to many people over the last year and a half that I am so blessed the Lord decided to spare the lives of my boys on the day of the accident.  In case you haven't heard this part of the story, my boys were unloaded from J's car as he dropped them off just a few minutes prior to his accident.  I have recently seen pictures of his car for the first time.  All I can say is . . . wow.  (I pray none of you ever have to experience something as horrendous as that, and if you already have, my heart goes out to you.  It was by far, the worst thing I've ever seen.)  One of the pictures shows the remnants of the car seats in the backseat of the car.  As I looked at that picture I was filled with mixed emotions.  Of course the gratitude for the fact that they weren't in the car was overwhelming.  But then I started thinking, what if God had planned that day differently, allowing the boys to be in that car, too?  Would I still think He was good?  Would I still trust His sovereignty?  If I had lost my whole family that day, would God still be a loving God?  I know the answer to that question is YES, but I'm sure my journey to get to that point would have been much longer and more treacherous than what I've experienced.

 I praise God that this was not how He planned to write my life story, but even if He had, the principles would still be the same: "The God I serve is able to save me from such despair, but even if He does not I will still trust His plan for my life because my GOD IS GOOD."