Trusting God
You’ve never really given a problem over to God until you completely trust Him with the outcome. Too much of our faith in prayer is tied to getting God to do what we think is best. We rejoice if God does what we ask or if He responds as we think He should. What if God has other plans? Is He any less faithful?
The truth is, God sometimes does have plans that differ from our own agenda. As we pray, we must be willing to accept whatever God determines best. That’s never easy, but it’s a place we must come to in our understanding of the Holy One.
We all know the story of the three Hebrew young men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and the fiery furnace. The story is found in Daniel chapter 3. An order had gone out from the Babylonian king that everyone in the province was to bow down to the golden idol, and anyone who refused would be thrown into a fiery furnace. I love the approach of these three men in Daniel 3:17, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.” That was their hope and their prayer.
Verse 18 says, “But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy idols, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” They did not bow to the idol, and just as promised, they were thrown into the furnace of fire. It wasn’t what they hoped for, but they were prepared to accept the outcome.
In verse 24 King Nebuchadnezzar asked his
counsellors, “Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” They
confirmed that three men had been thrown into the fire. The king responded, “Lo,
I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt;
and the fourth is like the Son of God.” GOD spared their lives.
What an example for us today. Those three men provide a lesson for all of us. We must trust God, even if He chooses to work in a different way than we would like. Not only did God spare their lives, but the king was so impressed with what He witnessed that day, verse 30 tell us he promoted them to a higher level in his administration.
I’ll repeat it again; we’ve never really given a
problem over to God until we can completely trust Him with the outcome. Pray,
pray fervently, and be prepared when God has another plan.
Pastor Bruce Freeman
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