I don’t know where people get this idea that Christians are supposed to have a perfect, easy life. Clearly, they’ve never read the Bible, or if they did they’ve had a severe memory lapse regarding the actual content of it.

Since the beginning of time, God’s people have struggled. Death, murder, adultery, incest, poverty, homelessness, war – you name it, it’s in the Bible. There’s no guise of a pretty life, packaged neatly, tied with a bow and delivered to them as soon as they acknowledge that God is God. Scripture is true to life as we know it all too well.

What knowing God does do for us, is change our perspective and reframe our minds.

You’re probably familiar with the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When we teach this to kids, we often focus on the fact that God saved these men from the fiery furnace into which they were thrown. Which, I mean let’s be real, IS a great reminder of God’s sovereign power and majesty.

But the part that stuck out to me today was this:

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty. But even if he doesn’t, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.” — Daniel 3:16-18

The faith of these men astounded me. They were fully aware that God was great enough and powerful enough to save them from being engulfed in flames. Which is enough faith in and of itself.

But what really shows the character of their faith is that they knew that God might choose NOT to save them from it, but still would not worship Nebuchadnezzar’s gods. They still knew that God was good and that He was worthy of praise above everything else. They were willing to walk into that furnace whether they lived or died.

We all face fiery furnaces of our own from time to time. Maybe your fiery furnace is a medical diagnosis, the loss of a job or a loved one, or financial struggles on the horizon. Whatever it may be, we know that it’s inevitable; we will be thrown into it no matter what.

We have a choice on this side of it.

We can choose to let it wreck us and our attitude, be anxious, worried, or fearful, or crush our spirit.

OR

We can choose to know that God can rescue us from it and that even if He does not that He is still good and still worthy of our praise.

What fiery furnace are you facing? Will you trust that God is big enough to save you from it and trust Him even if he does not?

 

Give a listen to: Even If by Mercy Me

Sometimes it feels that my heart is to heavy write, to pray, to do anything except avoid everything that is reality and slip into the comfort of the things that allow me to ignore what is in front of me. 

When I get overwhelmed by too many tasks to complete or an increasing amount of hard stuff or heaping piles of emotion, I find solace in a TV show or a good fantasy book or some dumb game on my phone if only to be able to allow my brain rest from the constant clamoring from one thought to another. 

Facing the realities of life is hard and unpleasant. It causes us to truly take a look at ourselves and the part we play in the current state of our lives, city, relationships, country or world. We can spend time attempting to fill our lives and our minds with non-reality, but inevitably the thoughts of our present situation always find a way back into our minds causing gut-churning, sickness, or heavy chested anxiety. 

Why is it so hard to come to terms with what is real? Why do we run in the opposite direction of honesty and vulnerability? Is it pride? Fear? 

When we get hurt and our trust is broken, our ability to be vulnerable lessens, not just with the person who hurt us, but with the rest of the people we allow into the inner circles of our lives. 

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.” – C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

It is tempting and seemingly beneficial to simply close ourselves off from putting our hearts on the line and sharing them with someone else. But ultimately our hearts become more and more hardened and incapable of giving or receiving love. 

Jesus is our ultimate example of vulnerability. Fully God, he came to our earth in the most vulnerable of forms, a baby. He constantly put himself in situations where he would be an outsider with an unpopular viewpoint or an unaccepted solution to the present problem. It was hard. It was hard for him to the point of sweating blood, of a friends betrayal, of physical torture, of mental, emotional, and spiritual humiliation, and ultimately to the point of death. 

But each step toward honestly opening your heart to face reality and to love and be loved creates more and more of a capacity for love. When we invite God and others into the pieces of our lives that aren’t shiny or don’t fit the status quo, we find a life more fulfilling, beautiful world. Yes, there will be heartache and hurt and loss, this is inevitably part of human relationships. But what we gain is life-giving and eternal. 

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” – 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

There it was on the horizon, again – the unknown. She’d been there before and if she was really honest with herself, she always knew it was there, but she didn’t usually have to face it. 

Now, from where she was standing, she had to face it and cross over into it. The unknown was somehow familiar. She had faced it several times before and now, those parts of the unknown have all become memories of the past, some fading away, others standing out in stark contrast to the others. 

Even though she has been in a similar place before, the anxiety of what was ahead began to well up in her slowly, trying to convince her that she wouldn’t make it through this time. That stepping into the unknown wasn’t good for her and that her safety wasn’t guaranteed. 

The doubts swirled around her and yet, she knew that stepping into the unknown was inevitable. That eventually, whether she took the step or not, the unknown would become her new reality. Her new normal. 

She could either spend the time before crossing over in fear and anxiety, or she could take the time to prepare herself. To gather her resources and her support, to prepare her heart and her mind for the journey ahead that was sure to have trials, hazards, and detours along the way. 

She took a deep breath and sat down in front of the unknown and let her heart be still before the One who would guide her along the way and the One who had been near to her on the journey up until now. 

If all else failed and everything became the worst case scenario, she would still have the One holding her steady.