"But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?" 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."
- Daniel 3:15-18
Did you know that God can deliver us from any situation in one of three ways?
He can deliver us from a situation. In other words, He can choose to keep us from it altogether completely unscathed. He can also deliver us through the situation, meaning we will feel the heat, and the pressure, but He will see us through to the other side. And the last way, He will deliver us by the circumstance, meaning we will not only experience the trial or circumstance first hand but have the privilege to see Jesus face to face at the end of it (literally).
This reality was awakened to me as I listened to a recent message by Beth Moore. The bottom line is that God's heart is always in the deliverance. He always wants to see us walking as whole, complete, joy-filled individuals. So much so that He will come down and walk around with us through the ugliest and nastiest of life circumstances. But even in the midst of that, just like the three Hebrew children, we should refuse to bow to the little god of distress, discomfort, cancer, etc. and instead acknowledge that God is still the same and His will is to deliver us.
The only questions we have to ask is what does God want to teach us during the trial and in what way does He want us to change as a result.
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