“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”  Isaiah 43:2

All of us at some point in time have been through tough times in our lives.   Sometimes, God delivers us from these things immediately and sometimes, He walks through them with us.  There are times when we will go through the fire and God will allow it, but we never go through it alone and as Isaiah 43:2 shows us we won’t be burned.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about this in my life.  It has been nearly 4 years since my husband left and to be honest…I never thought this was a fire I would walk through.  When I first realized that my husband was thinking of leaving, I cried out to God,  sure that He would intervene and my husband wouldn’t leave, but then he left.  I was sure that God would bring him home quickly.  But as week turned into month and month turned into year and our divorce dates were looming I began to pray that God would keep me from walking through the fire of divorce.  It was not something I wanted, but the fire raged as I walked through and the divorce became a reality.

Now that all sounds pretty hopeless and sounds like maybe God ignored me, left me and allowed me to be burned in the fire.  But the truth is the exact opposite was true.  Every step of the way, God was with me and every step I take He still is.  My hope is in Him, regardless of my circumstances.  This isn’t always easy, and at times I felt like I was barely holding on by a thread.  Sometimes, I still feel that way.  It is in those moments that I feel God the most.

When I heard the new MercyMe song Even If.  I thought, wow that song totally explains exactly how I feel.  If you haven’t heard the song, you can watch the lyric video here.

The song talks about when we cry out to God to save us from the fire and instead he allows us to go through it.  The lyrics come partially from the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  In Daniel 3 we read how King Nebuchadnezzar made a statue of gold and demanded that when the music played everyone had to bow down before the statue.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused and because of their refusal they were to be thrown into a blazing furnace.  Their response to  this is read in vs. 16-18

“Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.  If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us^[c] from Your Majesty’s hand. ¹⁸ But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” Daniel 3:16-18

The faith of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego was amazing.  They went into the fire knowing that God could save him from the fire but it didn’t matter if He did or not, they would serve God alone regardless.  Of course as we know, they did go into the fire and they could be seen walking around in there with a fourth person.  God did not leave them alone in the fire.  When they came out, they were not burned and did not even smell of smoke as the bible tells us.

As I said at the start of this post, there are times in our lives where we are going to have to walk through  the fire.  Times when God is going to allow the river to rise and we are going to have to cross it.  We may not understand why He allows this, but we have to trust in His sovereignty.  He promises us, that He will never leave us.  Our hope is in who God is and in what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross.  Nothing can take that away from us.  Our future is secure regardless of what we walk through in this life.