Faith In the Furnace

I paced in the tiny emergency room with a team of people working steadily and soberly on my 4 month old.  It is not a situation I ever expect to be in.  As I watched the surreal moments unfold, I wrestled deep within.  First, I wrestled with my own choices that evening.  Second, I wrestled with who I believed God to be and what I believed Him able to do.  

YES.  I knew I believed He could heal my baby.

  I believed He could undo what had happened.  I decided I was sure of it!  I believed and prayed with every ounce of faith I could muster amidst the sounds of beeping and voices that surrounded me. 

Later as I sat in a back seat for what seemed an endless drive to where my little man had been airlifted, I had faith that God, the Great Physician, who had brought Lazarus and others back to life, could restore life and health to that tiny body.  However, in those still moments in the darkness I also wrestled and confirmed in my heart that He was God and whatever He chose, He was still trustworthy.  I had read the whole Bible.  I knew that sometimes we believe, sometimes people long ago believed, and God healed, and God raised from the dead, and God protected or provided.  I also knew that sometimes we believe, and people long ago believed, and God answered in other ways - ways that we may never understand but somehow are just as good and right.  He worked then and works now through our faith in crushing circumstances to make people more like His Son in a way we never would be had God listened to our suggestions of how life should work out. 

Faith.

What does that really mean?  When I stepped into that room in the second ER that fateful night, I had such faith that when I saw my man holding our sweet boy with not a wire or tube connected to him, I believed for an instant that God had answered in the way I wanted despite feeling all the way there that He was preparing me to never see that sweet smile or hear that deep laugh again.  My heart leapt!  Then reality crashed down on me like a giant tidal wave crashing against the rocky shore.  He was gone - that was why there were no wires, no tubes.  

In those first moments of reality taking hold in my mind and heart, my faith collided with a wall it had never before faced.  As I wrestled with what this meant and how I would move forward, my strong husband was speaking.  He told of singing "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" as our son went to be with our Father.  

Do we have faith enough to say great is His faithfulness when our whole world falls apart?  Or is it a fair weather faith that only lasts as long as God does what we think He should?  

David lost a son.  John the Baptist was beheaded.  Stephen was stoned.  Peter was crucified.  Paul had a thorn in the flesh, was thrown in prison, was ship wrecked, and was beaten - all multiple times.  And would we dare say that these men lacked faith?  Would we say they did not believe God enough and if they had, they would not have suffered so?  Had I just believed a little more, had a stronger faith, would my boy still be here to wrestle with brothers, play ball games, and celebrate birthdays?  

Faith is not telling God what we want to happen and expecting Him to do it.  Faith is trusting, believing God can do anything and will do what is good. 

Sometimes faith takes you right into the fire.  The furnace is heated up hotter than ever, and faith means stepping into it because no way out is offered.  And as we look at those flames, Satan tempts us to dismay.  Would your god do this?  "And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?" (Daniel 3:15b) 

Faith Knows.  The three men who faced the fire in Daniel Chapter 3 knew in whom they had believed.

  “If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up."”

(Daniel 3:17-18)

 Our God is able, but even if He doesn't...  Sometimes he takes us into the flames and our prayers aren't answered the way we think is best but it isn't because He isn't able, or isn't good, or because we haven't believed enough.  It is because He knows what is the very best.  Faith means believing in God's power, sovereignty, and goodness when you can't see it for the flames.

Their faith was in the One true God. 

In verse 23 we are told they fell bound into the fiery furnace.  Sometimes we enter the flames bound as well.  We find ourselves in bondage to one thing or another and it holds us captive.  In the midst of those flames though, God will often set us free.  In verse 25 it says the king saw that the men were walking around unbound and that there was a fourth man with them like a son of the gods. The Bible doesn't tell us if the three men in the furnace could see that fourth man, but I like to think they could. Regardless, God made His presence known.  Very often, it is in the flames, when the furnace is heated to its hottest, that we see God the most clearly.  In those times, our faith grows, and the shackles that bind us fall away. 

For me, what bound me was fear, and it would take years but the furnace of loss is what God used to begin to set me free. 

They had faith in God's ability to keep them from the fire.  They had faith that God could save them if they had to enter the fire.  And they had faith that even if they were not saved at all, God was still God and He was good and worthy of their praise.

  That. Is. Faith. 

The king brought them out and one of the most powerful statements in the story is made about those men after they came out.  Their hair was not singed, their cloaks not burned, and they didn't even smell like smoke. 

They didn't even smell like smoke.

Faith knows God can take you right into the middle of a furnace and bring you out again without even a foul smell about you.  You will still be, and I believe even more so, "...the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.”

(2 Corinthians 2:15)

No one wants to go into the furnace.  No one wants to face the flames.  I can guarantee these three men in Daniel chapter three didn't want to be thrown into that furnace.  Their faith wasn't one though that said either He saves us or He isn't God.  They had true faith that said He IS able, but even if He doesn't they were going to trust and worship the One true God. They knew the truth of Romans 8 long before it was written: 

“No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that not even death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, hostile powers, height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!”

Romans 8:37-39

They knew He was God and He loved them and no furnace could change that. No extreme heat could melt away the truth they stood firmly upon. 

Perhaps God has some flames He has asked you to walk in.  He is still God.  Maybe He is going to set you free through those flames, or maybe the heat will help you to see more clearly who He is and how He is working, or maybe He is going to use it to make you a sweeter fragrance to this lost and hurting world.  True faith doesn't mean we avoid the pain of the furnace if we just have enough of that faith.  True faith means that whether God chooses to rescue us before we ever enter; or allows us to go in and rescues us out of it; or allows the furnace to end our life; we still believe He is a good, faithful God because His Word tells us He is and He has shown it to be so all throughout history. 

He hasn't promised me an easy life if I trust Him.  He's promised me He will be with me whether fire, or flood, or both (Isaiah 43:2).  Standing in the ER nearly thirteen years ago, all I could see were the flames all around me but I know, He was walking around in them with me.  Thirteen years later, I know there is not even a scent of smoke.  

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Jeremiah 29:11

Not perfection and not ease, a future and a hope.  Sometimes those things come best through faith in the midst of the flames.