And If Not, He is Still Good

If God doesn’t come through the way we want, will we still say, “And if not, He is still good?”

Each of us will encounter trials that stretch our faith and circumstances where we desperately need God to act on our behalf. We know God can do it. But will He?

If you’re new here, my own plans went up in flames when I went to bed happily married and woke up a widow and single mom to our seven children. My kids were four, six, eleven, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, and nineteen years old at the time. When I woke to Dan’s heavy breathing, I started CPR, called 9-1-1, and prayed my guts out for God to have mercy on us.

I believed God could keep Dan alive. God could in fact have kept Dan alive or kept us from this suffering altogether. And yet, God did not answer my prayer the way I wanted.

The collision between what we want God to do and what he does when it looks different, can bring us to a crisis of faith. We’re forced to face all the ways we’ve made God our good luck charm or genie in the bottle, here to do our bidding according to the life we’ve ordered.

I wouldn’t have said I’d made that idol in my heart. I’d just misaligned my faith a tad. But small misalignments create big idols and when life fell apart, mine was revealed in all its oxidized indignity.

Standing in that fragile place where we’re utterly dependent on God, can we say, and if not, you are still good?

Last weekend, I led a women’s retreat from the account of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3. What did they know about God that we need to know when we’re facing our own fiery flames?

First, God is able. God’s ability to rescue wasn’t a question for these three men: “[O]ur God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace.” (Daniel 3:17, ESV) Nothing is impossible for God. God split the Red Sea, destroyed Jericho’s walls, fed thousands from one boy’s lunch, and raised Jesus from the dead. He is all powerful.

Second, God is sovereign. God not only has all power but controls all power. That means the government isn’t in control. Our boss isn’t in control. The doctors and medicines and cancer are not ultimately in control. Everything seen and unseen is under the hand of God.

But that begs this thorny issue: God could answer our prayer the way we want, but he may choose not to.

The gap between what God can do and what God will do is the place for our surrender.

God doesn’t ask from us what he hasn’t already done. Jesus faced his own “even if not” moment before going to the cross.

Three times, Jesus got facedown before his Father and begged him to take away the cup of suffering. Each time, Jesus acknowledged God’s power while surrendering to his sovereignty. In Mark 14:36, Jesus prayed, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.”

The third thing we can cling to when God doesn’t keep us from suffering? God is with us.

Faith in God doesn’t mean we get a pass from suffering. It means we have God who’s with us in it.

To King Nebuchadnezzar’s great surprise, when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were cast into the flames, they were delivered! There was a fourth One with them in the fire, who was either the pre-incarnate Jesus or an angel. They were walking, unbound, and unhurt.

God’s presence means he’s not a remote God who sees us in pain but stays far off. He is Emmanuel, God with us, who loves us so much that he chooses to enter our suffering with us.

There’s so much more to pull from this passage, but I want to leave you with the difference between “only if” faith and “even if” faith.

Only if faith says I’ll trust you God only if you answer my prayer like I want.
Even if faith says, I’ll trust you God even if I never get the answer I want.

Only if faith says I know you love me God only if you keep me from the fire.
Even if faith says the cross forever settles that you love me even if I go through the fire.

Only if faith says I believe you’re good God only if my circumstance is good.
Even if faith says I believe your goodness is for me God even if my circumstances feels bad.

Only if faith says I expect my obedience to keep me from suffering.
Even if faith says I will expectantly look for you with me in suffering.

At some point, we will all face the choice to trust God and his goodness even if he doesn’t answer our prayer the way we hoped. No matter the outcome, may we like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego declare, “And if not, you are still good.”