Dancing in the Flames
Window at Upton House, Warwickshire
How far would you go for your faith?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up." - Daniel 3:16-18
When King Nebuchadnezzar required all his subjects to bow down before a statue he made, there were three defiant souls who refused, even though the penalty was to be thrown into a fiery furnace.
As the story goes, the three were thrown into the furnace but were not burned. Their faith had made them fearless and it also saved them from harm.
It was Nebuchadnezzar who first mentioned the possibility of being saved from the fire, when he said to them, let your God deliver you.
I wonder if they would have even consider that as an option, or would they have thought they would just go to their death.
In poker terms, that upped the ante.
They saw the possibility of being delivered from the fiery death as something God could do for them, and so they ratcheted up their faith and shot for that option.
Yeah, why not? They might have thought. Let's go for surviving this mess altogether!
When we come to God with our expectations of what He can do, we frame the situation and that could be limiting. Why not go for it all?
To follow along with poker terms, why not go all in?
The lesson from these three believers may be just that. The only way to go is all in. If I fail to see an option as viable, even though everything is possible with God, I limit what God will do.
Jesus hinted at that each time he asked the beggar, "What is it you want me to do?"
If we don't have a clear picture of our totally healed self, we will fail to be totally healed. Some of the work is on us. That work is picturing the solution as though it has already happened.
So, today, let's try to be all in. Let's approach everything we do with the faith that anything and everything we tackle can and will be achievable. With God's help, we can do anything.
We can even dance in the flames.
More to come...