In addition to getting older there is another thing that has helped with
my defensiveness. And this is simply letting God be my defender. It’s
learning to move out of battles that were never meant for me to fight
and let God do His thing like only He can do.
Peace, P.E.A.C.E! Now peace? I got plenty of time for that and I know you do too.
So
in this week’s study, we see Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego use this
same lesson while facing their struggle. They teach us to move aside in
faith and let God fight our battles. No more battling the enemy on our
own.
The second lesson we learn from Shadrach, Meshach and
Abednego’s response to King Nebuchadnezzar about standing firm when the
struggle is real is the importance of knowing that God is our defender.
The first thing they say to King Nebuchadnezzar that we read in Daniel
3:16 is this:
“King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.”
Now King Nebuchadnezzar was already upset, right? Can you imagine how
much more upset he was after hearing this response? He asks them who
will deliver them from his hand and their response is pretty much, we
don’t even feel obligated to answer your question on this matter.
Because when it comes to matters of their faith and who they ultimately
bow down to worship they only answer to One God and it ain’t
Nebuchadnezzar.
But what I think they are really saying here is
not that king Nebuchadnezzar did not deserve an answer but that their
God would answer for them, that they did not need to defend their God or
themselves because they thoroughly trusted that God was their ultimate
protector and defender. And this is an important reminder because
Nebuchadnezzar is essentially trying to intimidate them to do what he
wants them to do. And had their faith not been solely in God’s ability
to protect and defend them, Nebuchadnezzar’s intimidation tactics might
have worked. He might have been successful at scaring them into
worshiping this false idol.
And that leads me to question how
many idols we worship simply out of fear and intimidation? Is the enemy
luring us to worship some idol, is he taking advantage of our fear that
things might not go our way and push us into trying to take matters into
our own hands instead of trusting God?
This reminds me of the
story of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis. God promised Abraham that he
would be the father of many nations but as he got older and older they
had not had even one child. Sarah had enough waiting on God to deliver
on his promise, so she takes matters into her own hands and tells her
maidservant to sleep with Abraham so he can have an heir. If you
imagined that the entire situation did not turn out well you would be
correct. Drama for dayz ok? And as crazy as Sarah’s plan sounds on paper
guess what? When we don’t trust that God is our defender we do some
crazy stuff too. But at the time it does not seem crazy to us, we’re
simply trying to alleviate the pressures and anxiety that come when
things don’t go our way, when the struggle gets real and we start to
doubt if God will really be there to defend us from this fire.
While
we were dating in college, my now husband was studying computer
engineering. At the time my computer broke when I was away at home on
one of our breaks. I became anxious and fearful because all my school
work and personal documents were on this computer and I did not have
them back up anywhere else. So instead of waiting until I got back to
school to have my husband look at my computer I fearfully rushed to a
computer store to see if they could fix it. Long story short I ended up
paying $300 for them to tell me they could not fix my computer.
When
I got back to school and told my husband he was upset that I wasted
that money instead of just waiting on him and frankly I was mad at
myself too. But then he proceeded to do what the computer store could
not do and fixed my computer for free. I paid $300 because I did not
want to wait a few more days because I was fearful.
There is
always a high price to pay when we don’t trust our God even when life
seems out of order and that price yields no profit to our lives. It’s
important to remember even when our life is out of control and the
struggle is real our God is still in control. We might not always
understand why God is allowing certain things to happen in our lives,
but we can always trust our God. Understanding is not a prerequisite to
trusting our God. We can always trust in the truth of our God and that
truth is He can and will defend us.
And when we trust our God, we
do not need to fear our enemy. When we trust God we do not have to take
matters into our own hands. To remain unshaken when the struggle gets
real we must know with all our hearts that God is not going to leave us
hanging, and as much as the enemy will throw it in our face we do not
answer to the enemy, we answer to our God.
God is our defender.
It’s time we stop holding conversations with the enemy and start
allowing God’s truth to speak over our lives.
And when we do that, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego we can boldly proclaim what they did in Daniel 3:17:
If
we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to
deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. –
Daniel 3:17 NIV
Yes our God can deliver, and oh yes He will Beloved.
[written by Christina Patterson]
