| Feb. 24th, 2008 @ 11:34 pm "But even if he does not...." faith |
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'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.' -- Daniel 3:16-18 (NIV)
(For those not familiar with the context, this is the time of the Israelite captivity in Babylon. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were three Hebrew men in King Nebuchadnezzar's court. The King had created a massive golden statue of himself and issued a decree that everyone must bow down to it, or they would be thrown in a fire. The three refused to bow down before the image, since they worship God alone. Follow the link above for the rest of the story. :D)
Anyway, context aside, this was a focus of the sermon at my church today. What really caught me is how this influences one thing that's bothered me on-and-off for the past few years: how do you pray for healing? I mean, if someone's sick, you want to have faith and pray for God to heal that person, but you also want to pray for "God's will" to be done.
This seems to be take a different twist on the matter, however, expressing both a faith that "God is able", but also that "God is sovereign". To be able to say "even if he does not x....we will not y", as opposed to "if you do x, I will y" -- that's a really cool idea to me. :)
And obviously, this goes far beyond the domain of healing. |
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