Fariza

I have no idea why the book of Daniel has been on my mind constantly for the past year.

Maybe it’s because I’m an immigrant of Persian heritage. I tend to find comfort in the stories of God’s people who lived and wrote in exile. They understood what it feels like to be caught between two worlds — longing for home while faithfully serving God in a foreign land.

Or maybe it’s because the current affairs in the Middle East make the apocalypse feel closer than it used to. That waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman is going to be the death of us all. Isn’t it?

Or maybe I keep thinking of Daniel because of the story of the fiery furnace — a story that contains one of the most breathtaking Christophanies in all of Scripture.

Whatever the reason may be, I can’t stop thinking about it.

Consider how astonishing that story is. Three young men — Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego- refuse to bow to an idol and are thrown into a furnace so hot that the flames kill the soldiers who throw them in. The unhinged King Nebuchadnezzar, who ordered their execution, watches them from a distance, expecting to witness a human shish kebab fest. Instead, he sees them walking around, completely unharmed, and the cool part is that they are not alone. There is a fourth person with them, “whose appearance is like a son of the gods” (bar elohin).

That detail has always captured my imagination.

Think about it: Jesus could have prevented them from entering the furnace altogether. He could have extinguished the flames before they were even thrown in. He could have rescued them at any moment. He could have appeared to Nebuchadnezzar and ended the whole ordeal on the spot. But He didn’t.

Instead, Jesus chose to join them in the fire while protecting them from harm.

Why?

I think we all know why. God was teaching His people a lesson.

We often pray for God to get us out of our painful situations. We ask Him to open the prison doors, calm the storm, heal the sickness, change the circumstances.

We ask, and we ask, and we ask…

And sometimes He does. He rescues us, He heals, He provides, He comes throught miraculously. God alone knows how many times He spared me from death without me ever realizing it.

But God also reminds us that sometimes He just sits with us in our pain and says nothing.

Sometimes He quietly enters the room, takes a seat beside us, and weeps with us.

There is always another in the fire with us, and that is where healing happens. He doesn’t always get us out of the fire — He stands in the fire with us.

Psalm 23 describes this perfectly:

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

Notice how David doesn’t say, “Even though I am trapped in the valley.” He says, “Even though I walk through the valley.” When we are in communion with God, there is always movement, always forward momentum. The valley doesn’t become our destination — it becomes the journey, the path, the in-between. It is sometimes a battlefield where the Shepherd doesn’t carry us over it, but walks beside us through it.

If you are going through hell, keep going.

Many of us want God to airlift us out of our suffering. We pray for escape, for rescue, for a miracle that bypasses the pain. But healing rarely works that way. Healing is not a teleportation — it is a journey. And on that journey, God does not remove the valley; He removes our fear of it.

And this is exactly how Jesus defeated death and healed the earth on the cross.

Jesus became fully human so He could enter death itself and defeat it from within. By His death and resurrection, Christ destroyed the power of death and healed human nature and opened the way for humanity to be reunited with God.

Jesus defeated death by walking through the valley of death.

If you are experiencing a painful situation in your life right now — enter it fully! Let it consume you to the point of death. But then rise out of it and move forward.

Let the Lord burn the sin, the brokenness, the disappointment, the trauma, the heartbreak, and the heartache.

Let Him burn it all!

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not fight the flames. They did not beg to be removed. They stood firm, and God met them in the fire. Jesus did not ask God to save Him from the cross; He said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

That is what healing looks like.

It is not the absence of pain — it is the presence of God in the middle of it. It is not rescue from the valley — it is companionship throught it, a hand that holds you as you walk throught it.

If you are going throught hell right now — keep going.

It’s not over yet.