Navigating Uncertainty...
Isn't this picture such an apt description of how we've felt about the events of the last 21 months? Our boat doesn't feel secure, the waves are big, and the tools we thought we could rely on to anticipate the future didn't help us realise how close the trouble was!
Over the next three weeks I'm going to offer short simple devotions on all the passages that speak to us when we're navigating uncertainty. You've heard and thought of many of these verses over the last two years, but as we draw to the end of the year - and everyone is tired and worn out - I think it's appropriate and necessary to revisit these truths in a concentrated fashion.
I hope it will be really helpful to you!
God bless and Love,
Theo
God bless and Love,
Theo
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Not Alone
Not Alone
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in big trouble. They had refused to worship the statue of King Nebuchadnezzar. They were therefore cast into the furnace! The furnace was so hot that even the soldiers who threw them into the furnace were burnt up!
To Nebuchadnezzar's amazement the three men were not burnt up, but instead they were joined by a fourth person who looked to Nebuchadnezzar like 'a son of the gods' and the three emerged unscathed.
He was only half wrong - the fourth person wasn't 'a son of the gods' but I believe that the person Nebuchadnezzar saw was a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus - the Son of God.
When trouble and hardship come, we often find ourselves thinking that God has abandoned us and that this is why the trouble has come. We tend to think that God's presence should guarantee the absence of trouble and therefore trouble signifies God's absence. The Bible teaches us something different:
When trouble comes into our lives:
When trouble comes into our lives:
- God is not on the sidelines watching,
- He is not stoking up the furnace,
- He's not standing in judgement on us like Nebuchadnezzar arguing that we deserve what we get.
---- No! He's there with us - in the fire - bringing us through.
| Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, 'Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?' They replied, 'Certainly, O king.' He said, 'Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.' (Daniel3:24-25) |
