What Happened in the Fire?

I don’t know why it’s so easy to flippantly read about God’s miracles. Why don’t I get excited and jazzed every time I read about how he healed a blind man with spit or commanded the wind and waves to be still. Maybe it’s the unintentional byproduct of growing up in church that somehow these stories become “normal” to me. There’s nothing normal about the miraculous.

You might be familiar with the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It’s found in the third chapter of Daniel in the Bible. It’s one many children hear growing up, which is interesting because it’s just one chapter. Their names are mentioned in the preceding two chapters, they have their big moment with the fire, and that’s it. We know the king promoted them, and then that’s it, no follow up.

As a child, you learn that they wouldn’t bow to the king’s golden statue, even under threat of a fiery death. Because they refuse to bow to anyone other than God, the king orders that they be bound and thrown into a fire that was so hot it killed the soldiers who did the task. But when the king looks into the fire he sees an extra man. He recognizes this as God with them, has the three men come back out, discovers that nothing was burnt or singed other than their bonds, and acknowledges that their God is the one true God.

Recently, I was able to read the story with new eyes and get excited again. Get excited that God defied all expectations in how he came through for these men. He could have stopped the king, torn down the statue,  or shut down the fire. He could have simply not let them be burnt, but instead, He joined them in it.

When we adopted Wonder Woman, my life went up in flames. I thought by obeying God to pursue special needs adoption that we would get rewarded with sunshine and rainbows and that every moment with our daughter would be special. Instead, we walked into the fire. It was incredibly difficult to navigate those first few months, sleep deprived and overwhelmed and trying to process a grief we couldn’t understand. I plummeted into depression and a barely controlled anger as I struggled to meet the needs of our daughter to help ease her pain and give her the quality of life she deserves.

He joined me. There, in the middle of the fire, God walked with me. He allowed the fire to burn away the expectations and misplaced identity that had bound me without my knowledge. He is the reason I survived that fire. He is the one due all the credit and the unmerited praise I receive. Like a kid whose parent has done their entire science project, all I did was carry the board and tell His story.

And that’s what I finally saw in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s tale. It’s a miracle that they weren’t burnt, but more importantly, they stood in the presence of God. They were in the fire with Jesus. How could I overlook the massiveness of that? What did they talk about? When the king told them to come out of the fire, they had to leave Jesus behind, did they even want to? Somethings are worth the fire.