what if we're in the furnace right now?

Sunday's 'big idea' was this: Serving Jesus means putting everything at risk and trusting him with the results. For the dudes of the day (Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego), this meant facing being tossed in a blazing furnace rather than worship a man-made idol. The stakes were high: life or death! Our 'heroes' chose death, but were rewarded by God with life for their faithfulness! For the three amigos, trusting God with the results turned out to be immediate substantial blessing. Not only were their lives spared, but King Nebuchadnezzar recognized their God as pretty darn good!

But can we expect the same deliverance when we trust God with the results? No, not necessarily. We certainly can rely on the possibility of deliverance, but there are no guarantees. Why do we have such a problem with this? I mean, isn't God supposed to always bring about a happy ending to our stories?

One of the things that makes this so hard for us is that we have such a short-term view of how/when God is supposed to work in our lives. We make an assumption that our struggles (our 'blazing furnaces') will be short-lived, that God works quickly! And sometimes he does! But not always, probably not even normally. Many times, we will be in it for the long-haul and the road will be long, possibly even extremely difficult.

But...BUT...the reality is that God is always with us through our experiences. His promise to never leave us nor turn his back on us (as made to Moses in Deuteronomy 31.6) is as sure now as it was then. The song Lisa Davis sang in worship ("Held") is so true: God's promise isn't that he'd spare us hardship; it's that he'd be there to hold us when we face it.

I don't say any of this to try to belittle our situations or pass them off as unimportant. But too often, we simply become self-centered in our hardships, as if we are the only one going through struggles and that everyone (including God) should be focusing on us at the time. Instead, why not begin praying for God to use your experiences? Why not begin (as you continue to ask God for deliverance/healing) to also ask him to use your experience as a way you can serve him? Why not view them as opportunities to connect with Jesus more deeply and serve him at a deeper level?

It's not easy, but that's what "trusting Jesus with the results" ultimately means--that he can do with our experiences whatever he wants as a part of his greater purposes for his world.