Part I: A Flooded River and a Hot Furnace
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze. Isaiah 43:1
This summer, I was sitting at the bedside of a patient, and we were talking about the hard things of life. We both agreed that if there was any way to avoid them, we’d take that route. After laughing and joking around, we settled down to the reality that there is no detour around hardship. We don’t get to take an exit ramp off the highway to travel the backroads. Neither are there any bridges to keep us out of the rivers, or handy barricades and signs alerting us to danger ahead.
“The only way to go is through,” the patient said to me. The tone of this person’s voice exposed first-hand experience with swift-flowing rivers and hot fires.
“The only way to go is through,” I repeated. My voice, too, held the sober understanding of what floods and flames mean to a person’s life and to their faith.
The first thirteen verses of Isaiah 43 give us the roadmap for successful navigation of the places in life where the road ends. Where do we go from here? What happens when we can’t see the road in front of us, or if we can see it, we notice the risks of getting stranded, burned, or drowned?
This verse uses the word “through” three times. When you pass through waters. When you pass through rivers. When you walk through fire. The Bible doesn’t say “if” you go through, like we stand a chance at going around somehow. It uses the word “when.”
Passing through the water and the fire are a given. It’s an assumed fact that our journey through life will hold waters rushing so fast and so strong as to sweep us off our feet, as well as the fires that burn so hot and so searing, they threaten us with torture.
In the book of Joshua, the whole company of Israelites had to cross the Jordan River in order to arrive at their new home. The priests had to go first. The Bible says in Joshua 3:15-16, “Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stooped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away.”
What those priests must have been thinking as they marched head-on toward a flooded river. They carried a heavy ark of the covenant and wore all their priestly robes. They’d sink and drown for sure.
But they went on, fully aware and probably scared to death. Three days prior, they’d heard Joshua declare that they would cross the Jordan to go in and take possession of the land the Lord their God was giving them as their very own. The priests knew God was with them. They didn’t know how God would save them from the flooded river, only that he would. They entered the Jordan, prepared to go through it, on blind faith.
Another story I think of is the well-known narrative about Shadrach and his friends in the fiery furnace, as told in the book of Daniel. They refused to bow to the image of gold the king had built. As a result, they were thrown into a furnace. The king was mad, and the provincial officials were loyal to him, but the three young Jewish men were calm and collected.
“We do not need to defend ourselves before you,” they told the king. “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from you hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know that we will not serve your gods.”
The king ordered the furnace turned up to seven times the usual heat. It became so hot, the flames killed the soldiers. The Bible reports the king’s words. “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire unbound and unharmed. The fourth looks like a son of the gods.” (Daniel 3:25).
Shadrach and his two friends were then removed from the fire. The Bible goes on to say that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed. Their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them (verse 27).
These brave young men had no way to get around the king’s anger. Their only choice was to endure it, and to go through with this stand they’d taken against his gods. The fire blazed in their faces. Deadly and dangerous, it licked at them in a sinister guarantee they’d reached the end.
But they knew God could save them. Even if he didn’t, they still chose to stand with him, and not the false gods. They were willing to stand for principles and die for their faith if necessary.
It turns out that the Lord didn’t require martyrdom for them. And yet, they still had to go through the fire. He was there with them, protecting and rescuing. Because of his presence, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego gave testimony to the power of God. The king broke out in praise and actually made a new law of respect.
God had given the Israelites the promise of a new home. They knew where they were headed and what waited for them there. The flooded river created an obstacle they had to navigate. It was temporary and brief, but dangerous, nonetheless. This impassable roadblock became an opportunity for God to work a miracle. He parted the water, allowing safe passage on dry land.
The young Jewish men in the book of Daniel displayed God’s glory in another way. His very presence was visible in the moment of their greatest crisis. God not only spared them from the destructive fire, but he also met them in it, walking with them through it.
God shows himself strong in our places of vulnerability. He helps us navigate the obstacles and he meets us in the fire. We may feel that our hair has been singed or that our clothing does smell of smoke from the flames we’ve been through. Or we might be coughing up water we’ve taken into our lungs while attempting to ford the flooded river. But we can still trust God to hold us in his righteous right hand, to be our shield, the one who sees us precious and honored in his sight, and the one who loves us.
