In my last blog I mentioned how God uses songs and
music to reach us. I said, “He spoke
to me time and time again through the lyrics penned years before by men and women
being obedient to His call”. One such instance is Rich Mullin’s song “Where
You Are”. In this song Rich Mullins and Dave Strasser talk about Daniel
(Belteshazzar), Hananiah (Shadrach), Meshael (Meshach), Azariah (Abed-Nego), and
Jonah.
Mullins reminds us that when Daniel was put into the
lions dens to serve as their next meal, they did not eat him, they didn’t even
bite him. “…So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no injury whatever was
found on him, because he believed his God” (Daniel 6:23).
Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego were placed into a fiery
furnace as punishment for not worshipping Nebuchadnezzar’s god or golden images
he set up. Nebuchadnezzar had the furnace heated to seven times hotter than
normal. It was so hot that the men who were instructed to put the three Hebrews
into it were themselves consumed by the fire and died. Shadrach, Meshach and
Abed-Nego fell to their knees in the furnace and were saved. When Nebuchadnezzar
looked into the furnace he said, “I see four men loose, walking in the midst of
the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of
God” (Daniel 3:25). This amazing story goes even further. If you have ever sat
next to a campfire it is impossible to go home without taking the smell of the fire
with you. It’s in your hair, in your clothes, it’s everywhere. In the case of Shadrach,
Meshach and Abed-Nego “the hair of their head was not singed nor were their
garments affected, and the smell of fire was not on them” (Daniel 3:27).
The story of Jonah is just as amazing. Because of
his disobedience Jonah found himself in the belly of a fish. Not a place where
one usually finds oneself but there he was regardless. Jonah Chapter 2 captures
Jonah’s prayer to God. God heard Jonah’s prayer from the belly of a fish
beneath the surface of the sea. Jonah was saved and so was Nineveh.
In a lion’s den, in a fiery furnace, in the belly of
a fish, is there no place we can go that God isn’t? Is there anywhere we can be
that is out of God’s sight? Can cancer hide me from God’s sight? Can cancer shield
my prayer from God’s ears? Is there any depth to the cancer abyss that I can
sink to where God cannot see, hear or touch me? No, no, no, no and most assuredly
NO!
Psalms 139 answers these questions for me. Psalms 50:15
implores me to “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you
shall glorify Me.” Jeremiah 29:11-12 states, “For I know the thoughts that I
think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace not of evil, to give you a
future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me and I will
listen to you.”
The apostle Paul assures me, as he did the Romans,
when he wrote, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor
rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). I’d like to add cancer
to this list. He is so much greater than cancer and is there to guide me
through all the time.
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