But if not.

I first posted this in May of 2012. Again, re-learning things I've already learned before, but that are becoming pertinent again:

Nebuchadnezzer is a crazy name. I'd never put my child through trying to spell that in Kindergarten. Turns out he was also sort of a crazy king. The Bible dictionary can't really put it that way so what it says is that he was "stricken by madness" which sounds much more civil. But the basics are these: he has an enormous gold statue made and commands that whenever music is played, all must drop what they are doing and worship this statue. If they don't, he'll bake them alive in a huge oven. It's stories like these that make the Old Testament so interesting, there are so many crazies. 

He heard that three men named Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to do as he commanded. They refused to worship the golden idol. When he confronted them, he said "if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?"

Let's just take a moment to consider that prospect. I despise the feeling of being hot.  My ideal temperature is in the low sixties. I can't even handle visiting Arizona between the months of March and November. I cannot imagine a fate worse than burning to death in an oven. That would have absolutely terrified me. 

But they said the following:

"If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king."

And now, the clincher...

"But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou has set up."

You've probably heard this story and thought about what it means but lately it has taken on a whole new life for me. The principle of faith has been floating around my head for the last few months. Faith is the substance of things hoped for butnot seen. I've repeated that countless times to others (on my mission, to friends and family members, while teaching a lesson in church) but am just starting to understand what that actually means to me. 

I think it is incredibly interesting that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were so faithful that they came up with one plan and one plan only. "We won't worship a golden idol, God will help us, and if for whatever reason He doesn't, we still won't worship a golden idol."Probably would have lost some of the effect if they had said something like, "No, we won't worship your idol, God has the power to help us and He will help us, but if not, then we're bringing some buckets of water and we have some friends set up to bail us out and we're also going to strike you dumb for messing with us." Their plan was beautifully simple. "We will do what we know is right, God will back us up and if for whatever reason things don't go the way we hope, we will die trusting that God truly knows what is best for our lives."

This applies to so many aspects of my life right now. As I've knelt by my bed and talked things through with my Heavenly Father, I have spent a lot of time fighting fears and fighting back tears as I've struggled to understand really what faith means. Faith means you don't know. And that it's okay that you don't know. Because HE knows. Faith means not planning an exit strategy or escape route. Faith means trusting that the safety net of the Atonement covers everything. It means putting your might, mind strength and especially your heart into something good and then trusting that it will work out. Faith means putting your all into the belief that Heavenly Father will back you up, and even if He does the opposite of what you wanted Him to do, you know that that IS Him backing you up... in a way that we can't quite comprehend. And dang gina... I have a hard time with this. I am a planner. I like to think ahead and know what's coming and be able to anticipate everything. He lets me do that to an extent but I think He is purposefully putting me in situations where that is not a possibility so I learn more about the most fundamental principle of the gospel. Faith. He is helping me to understand that if I put my all into things, I will not regret it. And by ridding myself of the poisonous mentalities of the adversary (i.e. this probably won't work out, you should be worried about this, what if everything backfires?, you're going to get hurt, don't go all in because you'll fall further) I can embrace an attitude of faith.