Our God Can, But If He Doesn't . . .

How many of you are asking for a miracle today?

Maybe today isn’t the only day you’ve asked. You’ve prayed for years. You’ve begged God to hear your cry. Like the persistent widow, you’ve asked again and again.

A wayward child.

An ailing parent.

A long-awaited hope.

A chronic need stretched into years longer than you ever imagined.

You’ve brought these needs to God over and over again, because you know God can.

He is able. You believe that with all your heart.

But He hasn’t.

What do you do when you’ve believed God for the impossible, but He hasn’t stepped in?

What do you do when your faith wears thin?

Three men stood on the edge of death.

They were told to bow down to an idol; an image of a mere man.

But nothing would coerce them.

Nothing.

Not when they knew the God of all the earth, the Maker of Heaven and earth, the Lord of hosts.

Not when they belonged to a God who chose them for His own, who reached down and led their people in power, and who had proved time and time again that He was able to do the impossible.

They wouldn’t bow down.

So they stood in front of flames that beckoned them to their death.

A death they deserved for the simple crime of believing in a God who is able.

That’s what they told the king: “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace” (Daniel 3:17).

Our God can.

“But if not . . . ” they continued. “We will never bow down.”

But if He doesn’t . . .

Four words that take thin faith and shakes it to its core.

God can, but sometimes He doesn’t.

So what is your faith going to do?

Will it bow? Cave in? Give in? Falter?

These three men knew they could be consumed by the flames.

They also knew God could deliver them.

And He did.

But what if He hadn’t?

Their faith would have still overcome the world.

Because true, overcoming faith never gives in.

And theirs never did.

Faith is tried.

Faith wears thin.

God works.

Sometimes He doesn’t.

But if He can, and sometimes He doesn’t, we will keep trusting.

We will trust the God who is greater than any nation, any need, any broken life, any desperate prayer.

We will never bow down, cave in, cower.

We won’t, because the One who authored the faith of those three men is the same Lord who authored yours and mine.

When our faith wears thin, we change our prayers: “Lord, help my unbelief.”

Because we serve a God who can.

Who sometimes doesn’t.

But He’s the only true God, and we have nowhere else to turn.

Who still reigns, and grants us faith that overcomes the world.

Our God can.

But if He doesn’t.

We will never give in.

This is “the victory that overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4).

The faith we need, He gives, and is greater than any answered prayer.

Click here to listen to Overcoming Faith [A lesson in the Hall of Faith series]