Healing From Life's DisappointmentsSample

Current events. Pandemics. Unemployment rates. Housing shortages. Family drama. Disappointments and hurts seem to lurk everywhere.

Sometimes it feels like the whole world is against us. In today's passage, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon decrees that all citizens must worship the golden image or face execution in the fiery furnace. Nevertheless, three brave young Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, defy the king's decree and express that they have no intention of worshiping anyone other than the God of the Bible.

These men do not succumb to pressures to conform to idolatry or bow to fear. They trust their God. They declare that even if God, in His infinite wisdom and sovereignty, allows the flames to consume them, they still will not give into ungodly pressure. The young men clearly understand that they need not fear those who can kill the body but have no power over their souls! They know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. They have nothing to fear.

No matter what is going on in our world today, we still can be encouraged! God uses every threat, hurt, and loss to refine, grow, and teach us to rely on Him and Him alone. He uses each disappointment to meet us in the fiery furnace of life's hurts, as He met the young men in the fiery furnace that day. That furnace is the refiner's purifying fire, and after we have been through it, we come forth as gold (Job 23:10).

In the middle of your hurt, do not be tempted to believe the lie that God has left you. You are not alone! There is another in that fire with you, as He was in the fire with those Hebrew young men.

Just like Babylon was not the permanent home of those Hebrew young men, this world is not our ultimate home. As a result, we have disappointments, confusions, miscommunications, and hurts. But God uses each difficulty to teach us to look that much more toward heaven. After all, if we had every human desire fulfilled here on earth, would we ever be genuinely eternally minded?

Today, as the hurts and disappointments come, keep your eyes up, your knees bowed, and your heart steadfast! Your God has promised never to leave you or forsake you!