Daniel 3 is the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego getting thrown into the fiery furnace because they would not bow to the idol King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. (If you’ve never read this story, I would HIGHLY encourage you to!) There could be a hundred different blog posts on this story, but I want to hone in on verses 16-18. These verses are Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s response to the king’s threat of the furnace.
“16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
The faith of these men is not in what God can do for them, but it is in God himself.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego say to the king that God will save them, but that even if he doesn’t, their faith and obedience will not waiver. So often we lift up prayers to God, but our faith is determined by his answer. If God heals the sick, we praise, but if he doesn’t, we doubt. If we get into our dream school, we sing of his goodness, but if we don’t, we question his plan for our life. We let our circumstances dictate our faith.
This cannot be.
Life is full of answered and unanswered prayers. It is full of rejoicing and weeping, opportunity and rejection. What we must believe as followers of Christ is that God is the same through every one of those. He is not only faithful when life is easy, he is faithful when it’s hard. He is not only good when we are celebrating, he is good when we mourn. God’s character is not defined by our circumstances. His character has been the same since the beginning of time and it will never change. He is good, faithful, just, and loving, and he sent his son to die so that all who believe may have eternal life. This is what our faith is in.
Who God is, his very character is sure. So, if our faith is in him, it is sure. When our trust is in the number of answered prayers (or the prayers answered how we wanted them to be), our faith will rise and fall. We will be bound to the roller coaster of life, to rejoicing and mourning, opportunity and rejection, excitement and disappointment. There will be no consistency in our faith because there is no consistency in what our faith is in.
Wouldn’t you rather have something steady?
You do.
Just put your faith in our never-changing, ever-present, eternally-loving God. He is as steady as it gets. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, choose to have faith in who God is, not in what he does or does not do. God never changes with our circumstances, and my prayer is that our faith won’t change with them either.
God,
Thank you for being sure. Thank you for being the same today as you were at the beginning of time. Help me place my faith in you alone so that it will not change with my circumstances, but will be firmly planted in you - my never-changing, ever-present, eternally-loving father. I love you, Lord.
Amen