But If Not

Embracing the uncertainty of God's deliverance

When I was a kid I played little league baseball. I don’t want to brag… because I was not very good. I was ok out in the field but very underwhelming at the plate. I was scared of the ball, which makes it rather hard to hit it. One year, maybe second or third grade, I got beaned by a pitch and that was it for me. I don’t think I moved a muscle at the plate, let alone swung, for the rest of the season.

One day during the next year’s season, I was talking to Dad and pointed out, proudly, “THIS year, I haven’t been hit by a pitch.” He sort of paused and said, “That’s fine, but it isn’t really the point of the game.” Not getting hurt seemed like a GREAT goal to me at the time but I also knew he was right. I had decided my job while at bat was to get out of the ball’s way.

Is there an area of your life where avoiding pain has become your overriding priority? If so, I think you’d probably admit that while you might be succeeding at your goal, it probably isn’t the right one. Aside from warping the way we live, this approach also warps our view of God. He becomes a sort of cosmic helicopter parent, whose job it is to protect us from ANYTHING that might be unsafe, to make sure that nothing bad ever happens to us.

But that’s not who God is. His job isn’t to keep us safe and our lives pain-free. There’s a story in Daniel 3 that I’m confident you’re familiar with. This is how it opens:

King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its breadth six cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Daniel 3:1-2 ESV

Nebuchadnezzar gathers all his officials and tells them about this new rule: When you hear the special music, you have to fall down in worship of the statue. And, by the way, “whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace.” (Daniel 3:6) So, the music starts and everyone falls on their face except for three Israelites named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The king demands to know what the deal is. He even offers to give the three a do-over. But the three refuse, saying,

… 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 3:16-18)

When it comes to God’s deliverance there are two questions: “can he” and “will he.” We know the answer to the first (yes) but we don’t know the answer to the second one, do we? In my experience, people have a hard time admitting that. Admitting that God might allow his people to suffer and die seems like a lack of faith. But it isn’t. These three men are convinced that God can and will save them. Yet, they make room for God to do something else.

One of the biggest problems with living as though the meaning of life is avoiding pain is that we avoid the “but if not” moments too. Should we only thank God when he blesses us? When he does what we expect? Don’t you think that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, until the end of their lives, were thankful for the furnace? Do you think they had any regrets about embracing their “but if not” moment?

Photo by Adam Wilson on Unsplash

As a little leaguer, I never stopped being scared of the ball. I maybe tried to swing a bit more after that conversation with my dad, but avoiding pain continued to be the driving force when I was at bat. Each moment at the plate COULD have been a little “but if not” moment, but I missed almost every one.

We need “but if not” moments because if we avoid them, if we insist on delivering ourselves from any kind of pain, then we miss everything God wants to do through those moments. We also miss opportunities to look a little bit more like Jesus. When God walked this world as one of us, in his darkest “but if not” moment he chose not to deliver… himself. In Gethsemane, Jesus essentially prayed,“Father, I want to be delivered and I know you can. But if not, that’s ok.”

When we refuse to allow God to do the unwanted or unexpected, we unintentionally find ourselves joining the thief on the cross next to Jesus, saying “if you really are the son of God, come down from your cross.” Jesus didn’t run from the Garden, he didn’t come down from the cross, and he didn’t deliver himself, because these things were necessary for our deliverance. If the uncertainty of what God will do troubles you, remember that God’s greatest victory came from Jesus’s own “but if not” moment.

We should always pray for deliverance, confident that God can and will. But I believe those prayers should contain “but if not” as we tell God that we trust him no matter what is in front of us. That his presence with us is enough. And when we pray these prayers, we can say, along with Paul:

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. 2 Corinthians 4:8-10 (ESV)