Faithful Under Pressure

One of the most powerful words in language today (in my opinion) is the word choose. We have a choice and the choices we make will impact our lives, positively or negatively. There are quite a lot of situations where we may feel like we don’t have a choice, that the choice doesn’t belong to us. It does though. God gave humanity free will. The freedom to choose between life and death and in the scenario of whether you’ve chosen to devote your life to following Jesus, if you have not decided you are for Jesus then you are against him. There is no sitting on the fence. The time we have in this life is so very short and no one can be guaranteed a tomorrow. In thinking we have not yet decided, then we have made our choice.

The bible is a love story of how God relentlessly pursues humanity to bring them back into a relationship with himself. Everything he does is out of love for us. Maybe where you are in your faith journey feels like there are just too many rules, it’s too controlling, you want to be able to make your own choices. I have found in my journey that being obedient to God is actually protecting me from evil. It is protecting me from being in places that would harm me. I don’t have to understand the why, I just need to trust God. Often we see in hindsight how this was God working everything together for our good. I mean, is it even faith if it doesn’t require us to trust in the unknowing. It isn’t faith to know all the answers and see everything all worked out before us. It is faith, to know with confidence that God has it all worked out and we just need to take it one step at a time.

We see in the story of Daniel God’s miraculous deliverance of a man and his friends who refused to go against God’s commandments. It is easy for us because we see the end of the story. When Daniel made a deal with the Chief of Staff for King Nebuchadnezzar, he didn’t want to defile himself by eating the kings food. All he knew was that in God’s laws he was not to eat such food and so he requested to only eat vegetables and drink water. I don’t believe he even needed to pray about this. I believe he knew the laws and so being an honourable man chose to follow God’s laws, knowing God would cover him. After 10 days of eating only vegetables David and his friends looked healthier and better nourished than the others who were eating the kings food and so they were granted permission to continue. They honoured God and in return God sustained them.

Again, when King Nebuchadnezzar commanded that everyone should bow down and worship his gold statue, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused. God’s commandments say you are not to worship any idols and that worship should be to God alone. They knew they would be thrown into the fiery furnace. This did not stop them from refusing to worship the gold statue. Think about this for a moment. If it were you in this situation and you knew that you would be thrown into the fiery furnace for staying true to God’s commandments and not following the commandment of the King – would you still go through with it, or would you bow under pressure. Would you succumb to peer pressure, or would you stand strong in your faith knowing God would deliver you as he had promised. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were in the fiery furnace and did not even smell of smoke when they were brought out. God was in there with them protecting them from harm. This is what obedience and remaining faithful under pressure will get you – deliverance from the fiery furnace. Support and covering when it feels like the walls are closing in around you. God making a way for you when in the natural it seems like there is no way. God is for you and will always come through for you.

That is not to say that if you are knowingly disobedient that God loves you any less. There is always forgiveness and God always welcomes you with open arms. However, there are consequences to your actions and although God would not intentionally cause harm, the enemy still wanders this world seeking to destroy, wanting to pull people away from God. Without obedience you give the enemy a foothold in your life to cause havoc. God has given you the freedom to choose but you do not have freedom from the consequences of your actions.

Further on into the book of Daniel we see how God shut the mouths of lions to save Daniel. Daniel was caught praying to God and as the law of the land did not allow this he was thrown into the lions den. King Darius did not want to do this, but he’d been duped into signing the law and so must follow through. He even declared his hope that Daniels God would save him. God, of course, came through again. We may be tested, more than once. The enemy doesn’t often give up after one victory, he will continue to attempt to bring us down and separate us from God. However, God will always come through for us, again and again and again and again. His mercies and love and faithfulness are never ending and we can rest assured that no matter how much we are tested in our faith. God will always bring us through to the other side.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego didn’t avoid the fiery furnace and Daniel didn’t avoid the lions den. The trials that we face in life may well be unavoidable. It is a process, we have to walk through them. The valley is often where we learn to let go of control and completely trust in God. When we see how God comes through for us, how he protects us and delivers us, this builds our faith muscle. We remember all God did for us before and it builds us up to walk confidently knowing that God will walk with us through the next battle in the same way.