Long ago, these were my hands…until they were wrecked by rheumatoid arthritis. Thirty+ years ago I had three joints replaced, two ruptured tendons repaired, and one large nodule removed. Yesterday I had  a second surgery on my right hand. The nodule has grown back and was removed again. The middle joint of my thumb underneath it has been destroyed, so it was stabilized by drilling a hole and inserting a pin. Recovering the use of my right hand may take three months (for the bone to strengthen).

The problems in my hand are not very painful, but it is getting harder and harder to grasp things with my right, dominant hand. The nodule may grow back. So the prospect of big gain is iffy. But my doctors are recommending this surgery, so I am trusting them and am all set to do it.

I am also trusting God for the gain of function we are hoping the surgery delivers.

When I told all this to a friend yesterday, she responded, “Well, you have an army of people praying for you.” I smiled and thanked her. It’s true. And if any of you reading this would like to volunteer, I’d be grateful. We have so many nerves in our hands.

My first surgery put me in bed for weeks just wiped out by the pain. This one was out-patient and, in answer to many prayers, they sent me home with meds to cover the pain. It was my main concern and the main way in which I had to trust the doctors and Jehova Rapha, “the God who heals.” I also have to trust God to get me through the next three months without the use of my hand.

As I consider trusting God for the pain of the surgery and the losses of the long recovery, I want to trust him like Shadrach, Daniel’s friend, and not like the Jewish patriarch Jacob. Perhaps you are facing circumstances where you need to really trust God too. Trust him for your kids or your spouse or a job or a health crisis or any one of a thousand different ways you may be facing pain or loss. Will you trust God like Jacob or Shadrach?

Jacob’s faith

Jacob, you may remember, stole his brother Easau’s birthright. Made Esau so angry that Jacob had to flee his home–his ageing father Isaac and mother Rebecca and all he had ever known–to go work for his uncle far away. On the first night of his journey, exhausted, alone, afraid and wondering how he would find his way or what might become of him, Jacob had a vision of God at the top of a ladder into heaven.

Yahweh promised Jacob that he would extend to him the promises he made to his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac–to give him the land of Canaan, make him a great nation, and bless all the nations of the earth through him. He concluded by telling him, “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

How did Jacob respond to this incredible vision and promises? “Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God’” (Genesis 28:20-21).

“If…then.” If God takes care of me, then I will trust him. Embrace him as my God. But it was conditional. God had to come through for Jacob before he could trust him.

The way Shadrach trusted God

After King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked and destroyed Jerusalem, he took Shadrach captive along with Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel, and thousands of others. He force-marched them far away from their home in the land of Israel, all the way back to Babylon (present-day Iraq). They had to learn a new language, live as exiles, and work for the king who had killed their countrymen and reduced their homeland to smoking rubble. And when this king built a huge solid gold statue of himself and ordered them to worship it, they had to choose if they were going to obey Nebuchadnezzar or continue to trust and worship Yaweh.

Who could blame them if they just went with the new cultural flow? It could have looked like Yahweh had broken all his promises to Abraham’s descendants. Where was he when the Babylonians invaded their land, their city, the temple of Yahweh himself, hacked it with their axes and set fire to it? It looked like Yahweh had abandoned them. It certainly looked like he had not come through for them.

But Shadrach and his friends believed that God would still keep his promises. He had his purposes for letting such horrors happen to them, and his purposes would work together for good. Because he was good. And they knew him and trusted in his steadfast love and provision.

King Nebuchadnezzar warned them, “But if you do not worship [the statue], you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up (Daniel 3:15-18).”

Instead of in their hearts responding with an “if…then” to God saying, “If you will be with us in the fiery furnace, then we will trust you and worship you,” they immediately told Nebuchadnezzar, how utterly and completely they trusted Yahweh, affirming their complete confidence that he alone was God and he was able to deliver them.

“But if not…” even if God let them perish in the flames, they would not serve or worship the gods of Babylon. They were false gods. Nebuchadnezzar was a man. Not a god.

Did God come through?

Did God come through for Jacob? Did he go with him on his journey and take care of him so that he came again to his father’s house in peace? Yes. He did.

Take it even further: Did God come through and keep his promises to the Jews? Did he bring the Jews back to their land? Did he make them a great nation? Are all the nations of the earth blessed through them and their Messiah Jesus? Yes, God has come through for them in every way. In spite of Jacob’s feeble faith. God met him where he was and honored his “If…then” faith. Not only for him personally, but for all of Israel.

Did God come through for Shadrach and his friends? Even though King Nebuchadnezzar heated the furnace seven times hotter and had the three of them thrown in, when the king looked in, he saw four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, unhurt; “and the appearance of the fourth [was] like a son of the gods.”

God miraculously came through for them.

And what difference do you think those responses of “If…then” faith and “But if not…” faith made in Jacob’s and Shadrach’s relationships with God?

Given the way Jesus was so often frustrated and disappointed with the lack of faith he found in his disciples and his people in general, I think it’s safe to say Shadrach’s great faith delighted him. Blessed him. Deepened their intimacy. Ignited their joy. Strengthened Shadrach’s faith even more.

That is the kind of faith I choose. “But if not…” faith. If God does not answer my prayers for relief from the pain or good gain of function from yesterday’s surgery, I will still trust him. And love him. And cling to him in my disappointment. And I know he will move in and make his home with me even more intimately (John 14). And pour his love like a fire hydrant into my heart (Rom 5). He will strengthen me even more to know the length, breadth, height and depth of his love that surpasses knowledge so that I might be filled with the fullness of God (Eph 3).  Especially God’s joy. The joy of the Lord is my strength.

God will not reject our “If…then” faltering faith. But the way of greater blessing, greater joy is “But if not….”