Furious with rage, Nebuchadnzzar said, “If you do not worship the image I have made, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?” Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. (Daniel 3:13-16)

Picture three men about to be thrown into a furnace. Fire roars in their ears and waves of superheated air flow toward them. Pain!

A furious king gives an ultimatum. “Bow now,” he shouts, “Or what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”

He challenges them.  “You’re in my power. Your faith is a foolish fantasy. God won’t save you. Surrender to me or die.”

The men’s answer is surprising. “King, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.’

No need for a defense! Really? If ever a defense is needed, surely it is now. No! They see things from a different perspective.

“You’re wrong, king!” they say. “Our lives are not in your power but in God’s. Even this very moment, before the heat of your terrible furnace, we choose to trust in Him.” 

There are many fiery furnace events in our lives. Pain, sickness—Cancer. Broken relationships. They challenge and frighten us, “Your faith is useless,” they say, “You are in my power. No God can help you now.” 

They are always wrong. At the door of this world’s fiery furnaces, the believer says, “Nothing in all creation can separate me from the love of God in Christ (Romans 8:39).

This can be your affirmation of faith, too. You are not at the mercy of this world’s pain. You can say, “My God is greater than the pain, larger than the hurt, more powerful than the Cancer. I trust in Him.”