This is the second post on my journey to understand God's will, and how His goodness is revealed in every situation, even when He doesn't do what I think He should, the way I think He should. Read part 1 here.
If I have any aptitude in scheduling a post, this should come to you as we are in the hospital, getting Imogen's PET scan. You know what makes sense to me? That the PET scan comes back, and they can't find anything. The doctors tell us they may need to do it again, but they'll wait to see what the MRI shows on Friday. But that comes back negative, too. They run a million tests over the next few months, but the cancer is gone, disappeared, healed.
I do believe in miracles; I am all in on God intervening in miraculous ways. But there is perhaps no more constant theme of the gospel than this: pain and suffering gives rise to salvation. Jesus was never worried about living in the balance of miraculous intervention and pain. He didn’t see the need to justify God’s goodness in the midst of trouble. He didn't shy away or try to make excuses for God and His will. Time and again, the most dangerous occasions brought about a fuller revelation of God’s character. From what I can tell, as often as He promised peace, He promised pain.
While God has not yet come through the way I’d like, or the way I think He should– or, perhaps, the way I think I would if I were Him– I will not reach the conclusion that I have figured out His will in this. Considering that I've now heard two sermons from the book of Daniel this week, I think God might be trying to teach me something. Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego made their choice not to bow to the golden statue of Nebuchadnezzar. They made this choice, anticipating that God’s will would involve a miracle, that He would intervene.
I do wonder if they thought He'd come to their rescue before they were arrested, or before they were shackled, or before they were tossed into the flames. Maybe Abednego was at peace with dying a martyr's death once the guards tied his bonds. I don't know what each man was thinking, but they seemed to live in the holy balance of expecting breakthrough without demanding a desired outcome. "But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3:18) God clearly isn't on trial here. Their faith is not dependent on what God does or doesn't do in that moment. He's not worthy of worship if He obeys our prayers. He is worthy and He is able, and the next moments in our lives don't change that.
The hardest part of the story for me to accept is the timing, actually; that it was only in the midst of the flames that the king and his men saw Jesus. “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” (Dan.3:25) Sometimes, God waits to show up until it seems most dire.
So, I trust that He will heal. And even if He does not, we will not put our faith in another way, or set our hearts on more tangible alternatives. We will not settle for less than hope in the impossible.
Anyway, that’s what I want to believe.
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