I visited a blog today where a young man spoke about the faith of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.. those young Israelites who refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar's giant golden idol. It caused me to think about Stephen, one of the deacons in the early church, who was stoned for confronting religious leaders. Consider this response to Nebuchadnezzar's threat of death by fire in the third chapter of the book of Daniel:
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O 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 save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."Don't you just love their response? Breaking it down ... these men simply said that our response to trials are not dependent on the results ... we trust God ... we let go of the results ... we follow His leading ... and we leave the future in the hands of God. In a sense we never really trust the Lord until we let go of the results. Not that it is easy. ツ
Easy.. no. We think we know what the 'good' result is, but in truth God has chosen to bring good out of trouble and through trouble. I'm still learning this and try not to panic when things go wrong.
ReplyDeleteGood insight Mike. I think that good even came out of Stephen's stoning.. I imagine the apostle Paul was impacted as Stephen proclaimed a vision of Jesus as he passed from this life to the next.
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