Playing with Fire
Still on our honeymoon in beautiful Puerto Vallarta, we are taking it all in! On this night we saw brave people playing with fire. It was a fire show on the beach just after sunset — a sight to behold. How do they keep themselves from being burned? Yikes!
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I amuse myself as God always opens my mind to “remember when” and that gives me another blog. Years ago, I remember July 4th in Tecumseh, OK when my young son was shooting off bottle rockets.
He just had to shoot one more and that bottle rocket blew into the electrical power plant across the street from us. The volunteer fire department was dispatched and saved the day for us and the power plant.
That reminds me of those fire-walking and fire-praising guys, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the Bible. We may feel like we are in an inferno of suffering, but nothing compared to the fiery furnace those guys lived through.
They wouldn’t cower to King Nebuchadnezzar’s command to bow to his golden statue. That enraged the king, so he had them punished by being thrown into a burning fiery furnace — amped up seven times hotter than a normal fire.
But their faith and steadfastness in the belief of their one, true God saved them. Daniel 3, says: “the hair of their heads was not singed nor were their garments affected, and the smell of fire was not on them.” The bonus was King Neb blessing the God of those brave men. Subsequently, they were promoted to govern Babylon.
What a story of complete trust in God! No matter the intimidation and lies of the enemy, God’s kids were not only kept from fiery deaths, but they were rewarded for their total dependence on God. They pointed King Neb to God.
And, when you and I trust God in our sufferings, we’ll also point unbelievers to Him, too. So, let’s take a test to see how we’re fairing during these times of our faith being tested.
Is the way we handle inconveniences, stress, pain, and concerns, being a witness of our faith and trust in God? When life is good, we don’t really measure up as great witnesses for God. Anyone can serve God during those times. Tough times are a different story.
Thousands of years later, we still talk about those brave Hebrews men. They faced the heat and conquered. Without the heat, we wouldn’t know this story. The same is true with us. Sometimes God brings new life to others because we trusted Him through the fires in our lives. Sometimes we are drawn closer to God when we see other people’s responses to the fires they’ve gone through.
I know fires. I know the damage they can cause. Because of the fires of tough times in my life – I know how standing firm in faith causes us to prevail. Today, I encourage you to invite God to be with you during your times of fiery trials!
If we keep the Holy Spirit’s fire extinguisher close at hand, we will prevail with a testimony of coming out of our fiery trials with not a hair singed and not even smelling like smoke!