What is cracking your life into pieces lately? An illness? A lost job? The last dollar? A broken relationship? Yesterday I learned there are three ways God deals with us when “fiery trials” enter our lives. First and foremost we must remember that “before a heartache can ever touch our lives, it has to go through His hands”*. Then He deals with us in one of three ways:
1. We pray and he removes the difficulty.
2. He leads us through the difficulty and brings us out the other side, wiser and stronger.
3. He takes us home.
Number one is my clear favorite and I’ve had many of those times to give gratitude for. Number two is where I am now, just poking one skinny weak leg outside the furnace, ready to take the first step out the other side. And number three, when I feel the peace of that final journey, I’m ready.
When Beth Moore presented these three ways God deals with our difficulties in life, she said, “As my mama says, we’re going to set a spell here”. And she was right. Although the concepts are succinct enough to carry around in our brains without needing constant reminding, I still had to “set a spell” and let yet another simplicity about God sink in.
Now for the reasons God does what He does when we face a fiery trial:
1. When He delivers us FROM the fire like we asked Him to, our faith is built.
2. When He delivers us by allowing us to go THROUGH the fire, our faith is refined so we can be better than who we were before the fire.
3. When He delivers us BY taking us home….our faith is perfected.
I know you agree with me that number two is by far the hardest way to deal with the trials in our life. The three men in the book of Daniel were put in the fiery furnace with their hands tied. They walked around in there and finally emerged with no ropes binding their hands or smell of smoke clinging to their clothes. The ropes were the only thing flammable. Sometimes we, too, have to walk around in that fiery furnace to burn off those ropes that God is using to free us from a long standing area of bondage. If we emerge “not smelling like smoke”, another words, not running around being the victim, poor me, see how hurt I am – then we have learned to handle our trial with faith, worship and praise. We have learned to emerge from the fire with true grace.
I go to this bible study every week and cannot get over what Moore pulls out of a measly few verses and shows how God is speaking to us, still today, through these ancient words. This story started out with Daniel as the leader of this little group of three men, but when it came time to face the furnace, Daniel was busy elsewhere. They had to step up when their leader was missing. Beth asked the question: If your strong one is missing, will you step up?
Years ago when I was a counselor at the young age of 19 at a Christian girls camp, my little 5 year olds used to sing a bible song about these three men – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo. Little did I know that biblical story, told in song, had so much insight to offer for help in the way I face the fiery trials in my life.
And so, as another day goes by, I will step-up and do whatever it is God needs me to do, knowing I’ll be wiser and stronger and a better me when I step out of the furnace (and hopefully will not smell like smoke, either) and…I have written.
*An unforgettable line in the song “No Matter What” by Kerrie Roberts that I heard over two years ago.
To read the story for yourself go to:
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