Recently, my husband and I had a telephone conversation with someone we have known and loved a very long time. I remember listening as this person began to tell us what was going on in their family life. That call literally made me weak as I envisioned the situation. It was a hard gut punch. My heart was broken, and worry began to engulf me. I still remember the call, and I remember the fear, anxiety, and scenarios that played out in my head.

While that conversation played out in my mind, it caused me to stop and think of other situations in which we were emotionally involved. I thought of both my brother and sister who are facing difficult health issues, my brother who had just lost his daughter, and my niece who is facing a battle with colon cancer.

Remember the old saying “when it rains it pours?” Have you ever had a season like that? It is one really difficult, heart-rending situation after another, and there seems to be nothing but challenges ahead.

“God, please don’t let one more heavy thing come my way right now.”

As I have prayed about the situations in my life, I keep hearing this, “Will you trust Me with the outcome?”

In Daniel chapter three, there is a story of three Hebrew children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who were faced with a dilemma. I know many of us are very familiar with the story, but if you are facing hard dilemmas in life, I challenge you to go back and read it again. Ponder the story.

These three guys were facing the dilemma to cave to the pressure being placed upon them or stand strong in their trust of God and risk sure death in a fiery furnace. Let’s remember that they are living this in real time. Real time is harder than reading it after the fact! They chose to stand and trust God.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were about to go into a fiery furnace. They were bound to make sure they did not escape the flames. It was impossible from a natural perspective. There seemed no way to break that which bound them.

Many times, in life, you and I are facing things that seem to have us totally bound with no way out. Our hands are tied, our feet are shackled, and we have no control over the situation. Oh, we might not be physically tied up, but mentally we are fighting the shackles of fear, anxiety, helplessness, and “what-ifs” that life situations bring.

Here is a question for us, “Will we trust God with the outcome, even when we have no idea what the outcome will be?”  Those three young men said, “Our God is able to deliver us … but even if He doesn’t, we will still serve Him.”  Their confession was, “We do not know the outcome, but we know the One who will have the final word in this situation.”

My favorite part of the story is King Nebuchadnezzar’s response after the three men were thrown into a deadly, fiery furnace. Then, King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?” They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.” He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a god.”

Notice, man had tried to bind them, but God gave them the power to walk about freely even though they should be bound. The trial actually freed them from that which had tried to bind them.

Sometimes, we all face waters that seem too deep for us and flames that are too hot for us. Let us grab hold of the promises in Isaiah forty-three. Read it from the New Living Translation.

“When you go through deep waters,
    I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
    you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression,
    you will not be burned up;
    the flames will not consume you.
For I am the Lord, your God,
    the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” – Isaiah 43:2,3 (NLT)

That is a promise you can hold onto when you are in deep waters, between a rock and a hard place, or in a fire of oppression. It is then that we can say, “I will trust God with the what ifs and the even ifs.”