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highest courage is to dare to be yourself in the face of adversity,
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Bishop Soc Villegas
25 July 2007
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LESSONS OF JOB
(Part 27)
BLESS THE LORD
November
23, 2009
In today’s reading from the book of Daniel, three men of Judah,
Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego),
glorify and bless God with one voice (Dan 3:52-56). What occasioned
this?
The three had been cast into the fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar
for refusing to worship the golden statue he had set up. But God
protected and delivered them, and they were not harmed at all.
Inside the furnace, Azariah prayed aloud. His prayer contains the
various aspects of our theme for 2010.
The Almighty! Azariah starts and ends his prayer by
acknowledging God for who He is. “Blessed are you, and praiseworthy,
O Lord, the God of our fathers, and glorious forever is your name.”
(Dan 3:26). “Let them know that you alone are the Lord God, glorious
over the whole world.” (Dan 3:45). At the heart of prayer that
reflects our relationship with God, manifested by Azariah’s
beginning and ending in his prayer, is an acknowledgment of God and
His awesome majesty.
Reverential fear and humility. Because of who God is, the three
have the proper posture: “we, your servants, who revere you” (Dan
3:33b); “we fear you” (Dan 3:41b). “But with contrite heart and
humble spirit let us be received” (Dan 3:39). We stand in awe of
God, which leads us to kneel or prostrate ourselves in humility before
Him.
Justice and righteousness. Azariah confidently calls out to God
because he knows what kind of a God He is. “For you are just in all
you have done; all your deeds are faultless, all your ways right, and
all your judgments proper.” (Dan 3:27).
Redemptive suffering. What occasions the miracle is what the
three have to suffer. They acknowledge that what is happening is due
to the chastisement of God because of the sins of His people. “By a
proper judgment you have done all this because of our sins” (Dan
3:28b). But after the extreme test the three had to endure, God
reverses not only their situation but the situation of all Judah. King
Nebuchadnezzar, who had commanded all to worship an idol, now
acknowledged the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and gave
protection to Judah in worshiping the true God (Dan 3:95-96).
What is our proper posture in the face of extreme suffering, in the
face of seemingly impossible and hopeless situations? It is to trust
in God (our theme for 2009). Why? The reason is simple: “those
who trust in you cannot be put to shame.” (Dan 3:40c).
What is the basis for our trust? There are so many. Among these: (1)
God is just and righteous. (2) In Him is “kindness and great
mercy” (Dan 3:42b). (3) He does not “make void (His) covenant”
(Dan 3:34b). (4) He keeps His promises (Dan 3:36). (5) He desires to
manifest His glory to the whole world through His signs and
wonders (Dan 3:43).
But aside from trusting in God, we must ourselves become just and
righteous. We must obey His commandments (Dan 3:30). We must turn back
from sin and every kind of evil, by which we have departed from God
(Dan 3:29). We must “follow (Him) unreservedly” (Dan 3:40b), be in
awe of Him, and maintain our relationship with Him in prayer. “And
now we follow you with our whole heart, we fear you and we pray to
you.” (Dan 3:41).
Suffering is God’s gift to His people. Those He loves He chastises
and disciplines. But if through our suffering we are brought back to
Him, and if we continue to trust in Him, then we will experience
redemption. And redemption is not only for us, but for the whole
world.
God acts in mysterious ways. He uses our enemies and delivers us over
to injustice. “You have handed us over to our enemies, lawless and
hateful rebels; to an unjust king, the worst in all the world.” (Dan
3:32). At other times He uses natural calamities to afflict us. At
other times, like in the case of Job, He allows Satan to oppress us.
We often cannot understand why God has allowed us, His servants who
revere Him, to “become a shame and a reproach” (Dan 3:33).
But God merely wants our repentance and our turning back to Him, and
for us to live out our covenant in faithfulness. So God delivers us to
our enemies, but He also delivers us from our enemies. “Let
all those be routed who inflict evils on your servants” (Dan 3:44a).
The end result, for ourselves and for our enemies, and indeed for the
whole world, is the shining forth of the glory of God. “Let them
know that you alone are the Lord God, glorious over the whole
world.” (Dan 3:45). The Almighty!
Even Nebuchadnezzar, the “unjust king, the worst in all the world”
(Dan 3:32b), acknowledged that “there is no other God who can rescue
like this” (Dan 3:96b). Indeed, he met the living God and
experienced transformation. And he himself became an evangelizer!
“It has seemed good to me to publish the signs and wonders which the
most high God has accomplished in my regard.” (Dan 3:99). And God
used him to proclaim His good news to the whole world, “to the
nations and peoples of every language, wherever they dwell on earth”
(Dan 3:98).
In the end, King Nebuchadnezzar himself stood in awe of the Almighty.
“How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders; his kingdom is an
everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures through all
generations.” (Dan 3:100)
We can never fully understand the mysterious ways of God, especially
when we suffer. But God will accomplish His divine purposes for our
lives and for the life of the world. We can only marvel and exclaim:
The Almighty! Just and righteous is He!
Let us continue to bless the Lord, for He is “praiseworthy and
exalted above all forever” (Dan 3:52a).
Go
to Part 28>>
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