Delivered Through the Fire, not from It

A View from the Inside of Suffering

I was sitting in church yesterday listening to an excellent sermon on John 6 about Jesus feeding the multitude and my mind wandered back to the topic of suffering. I got to thinking about the reality of suffering and the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel chapter three.

When these three were asked to bow before the King's Image and they refused, there very posh life in the palace was abruptly over. The king had made it clear that anyone who refused to bow and pay homage to his image would be thrown into the fiery furnace. And these three give an amazingly faith-filled reply, "O Nebuchadnezar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God, whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand O King. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." The king then proceeds to do just as he has promised and throws them into the furnace. It seems clear from all outside observation that these men have chosen death. That there is no escape for them. In fact, the officers who were told to take the men to the furnace were killed carrying them up there. Their statement of faith had made the king so angry that he had ordered the fire be made seven times hotter than before. And so they are thrown in as the king looks on, watching to see their certain doom. But a strange thing happens. As he observes this happening, not only do the men not burn up in the fire, but they appear to be loosed of their bonds and walking around. Then he sees an even stranger view: there is a fourth man walking in the fire with them. When he confirms with his officials that they only threw three men in the fire with them he is baffled. It seems that this fourth man even appears to look like the son of the gods. When they take these men out of the fire, not only are they not harmed, their clothes don't even smell of smoke. They actually come out alive, and not only alive but unharmed.

For most of us, when we see someone suffering whether it be from cancer, from the loss of a loved one or from a broken relationship, to the outsider it can seem like nothing but an impossible and devastating situation. All we can see is the immediacy of the danger, the threat to their lives, their happiness and their plans. Its interesting though, I have had the honor of watching a few people go through huge trials and they seem to be unsinged by their fiery trial. It baffled me until I experienced this myself.

Two years ago, the day after Hurricane Ike hit Houston, Mike and I had come to Dallas to escape the aftermath of the hurricane, and I began having a miscarriage. Not sure at first that it was really going to result in the loss of our pregnancy, a very gracious doctor, aware of our situation, fit us in and did a sonogram to check the pregnancy. I remember the doctor after a longer than usual search said, "I'm sorry, I can't find any evidence of a pregnancy" and left the room to give us some time alone. Mike and I were of course flooded with overwhelming sadness and a profound sense of loss. But something very strange happened in that moment as well. A presence entered that room the minute the doctor spoke. It was the presence of the Holy Spirit. I had at once the most overwhelming sense of love and peace and I felt keenly that we were not alone in that room. The Lord was with us. Right in the midst of that horrible loss, I had one of the most amazing experiences of the love of God I have ever known. How that moment in my life could be one of the most clear expressions of God's love is not really something I can explain even today, but it is. And this is what I know, just like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego my fire did not destroy me. I was in it. It was real, it was happening, but my Lord was in it with me, and that made all the difference.

I have to remind myself of that when I am tempted to look at the suffering of others in my life. From an outside perspective, there is no upside, no silver lining, just grief and sadness and weight. But when the Lord is in it with you, on the inside of the furnace-- it all looks and feels radically different. That's the thing with suffering, the equation changes when He shows up--every time. Interestingly, the one thing that did burn in the furnace for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego was the ropes that had bound them. That's usually what does get consumed in the fire of our circumstances, and ultimately the fire of God's love...What has bound us. As the writer of Hebrews says, (quoting the Message translation) "Do you see what we've got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He's actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won't quit until it's all cleansed. God Himself is Fire!"

That same passage reads in the NIV, "the words 'once more' indicate the removing of what can be shaken--that is the created things--so that what cannot be shaken may remain." This is really what happens in suffering, when we are thrown into the furnace. All that seemed to be so real, so important, and so pressing burns up in the fire of trial, and one thing is clear: He is with us--Emmanuel: God with us. Can we, with these three men of faith, say that our God is able to save us and He will deliver us? It may not be the way we wanted, it may not be delivered from, but delivered through the fire; but He will deliver us.