Whenever life gets difficult, I have a wonderful plan for God.

I present it to Him in great detail. “Lord,” I say, “here’s what You need to do. Remove this problem immediately. Eliminate this irritating person. Heal this sickness by lunchtime. Deposit a small miracle into my bank account before dinner. Thank You.”

Quite often, God, for some strange reason, does not follow my plan.

Instead, He quietly smiles.

This morning, while reading Daniel 3:19 to 27, the account of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, I realised something I had never really noticed before.

God never put out the fire.

Think about it.

King Nebuchadnezzar was so furious that these three young men refused to worship his golden statue that he ordered the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than usual. It became so fierce that the soldiers who threw them in were themselves killed by the flames.

Now, if I had been directing the scene, it would have been far more spectacular.

The furnace would refuse to light. Dark clouds would gather. Rain would pour.

But God chose none of those options.

The furnace continued burning exactly as before.

The miracle was not outside the fire.

The miracle was inside it.

Nebuchadnezzar looked into the furnace and almost fell off his throne.

“Didn’t we throw three men into the fire?” he asked.

Then came the astonishing reply recorded in Scripture. “I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

The fire remained. The flames continued dancing.

But they had lost their power to destroy.

Isn’t that often how God works in our own lives?

We keep praying, “Lord, remove this problem.”

He sometimes does.

But many times He chooses something even greater. He joins us in the middle of it.

The medical report may still be on the table. The office politics may still continue. The family misunderstanding may not disappear overnight.The financial pressure may still be knocking at the door every month with remarkable punctuality.

Yet somehow, we discover an unexplainable peace.

Strength we never knew we possessed.

Joy that refuses to pack its bags.

Hope that stubbornly refuses to resign.

The problem has not changed.

But we have.

Because Someone else has stepped into the fire with us.

Perhaps we spend too much time asking God to change our circumstances and too little time recognising His presence within them.

Maybe the greatest miracle is not that the furnace disappears.

Maybe the greatest miracle is that the flames cannot touch the one who walks beside the Lord.

So if today you find yourself standing in a furnace of worry, illness, loneliness or disappointment, remember this.

The God of Daniel still specialises in fire walking. He may not always extinguish the flames.

But He will always make sure you never face them alone, even as you come out of it unscathed, untouched, unperturbed…!

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