Walking Through Fire!
Tonight I cannot sleep for some reason and feel the need to write a new blog. It has been several months since posting anything that I would consider meaningful that I wrote myself. A major reason that I have not is that I have been healing and working through the most difficult season I have ever had to face. As I wrote in a previous blog in December, I had an attempt made on my life while on duty, for those of you who don’t know, in addition to being an ordained minister, I am an 8 year veteran law enforcement officer as well…..:
Going through difficult times will do one of two things depending on how you approach it….
1. It will cause you to grow and mature
2. It will drag you down or kill you
I call these times going through the fire…
There is a story of in the bible of 3 Hebrew children living in Babylon who were confronted with a decision to compromise their faith when the king ordered them to bow to an idol of a pagan God, or be thrown into an execution chamber called “the fiery furnace”. It was a place where people were literally burned to death when sentenced to execution.
They refused to compromise, and I love their statement to the king, they said, “Our God is able to deliver us from execution, but even if he does not, WE WILL NOT BOW”…That’s is some serious FAITH!
I am sure that there was fear to face in that decision, I am sure there was a temptation to compromise, but they chose not to and as a result were tied with ropes and thrown into the fiery furnace.
Not knowing the end of the story, Many would ask, Why would God allow them to be thrown into the fire? But there is more to the story…
You see the fire actually served a purpose…and in our lives, many times the fire we are thrown into ends up serving a purpose…and in the Hebrew children’s life, God was in the fire…
The king looked into the furnace after having 3 men thrown in, and observed 4 walking about in the fire and the bible says that the fourth was likened unto the son of God…The king called to the men and the three came out of the fire unburned with only the ropes that initially bound them burnt off…The fire was actually the tool that God used to release them from that which bound them…
Over the course of the past 3 months I have been on quite the roller coaster…As of today, I am still off of work because of the attack and injuries that I sustained. I have been through my own “fiery furnace” if you will, and have had plenty of opportunities to “give up” if I wanted to. I just simply refuse to allow my situations to dictate my relationship with God. When times were at their hardest, I raised my hands to heaven and thanked God for his faithfulness in my life and praised him…I do not believe for a second that he sent this “attack” to teach me some kind of lesson, (on the contrary, I believe he tried to tell me three different times that something was wrong before the attack) but I do believe that he uses situations and works all things out for my good.
My circumstances said that things were really bad, but I know that the word of God is TRUE and I choose to stand on his word in spite of my circumstances and guess what his word says that He is Faithful, so even when I don’t see the whole picture, I know my God is faithful because his word says he is. His word says that I am his child and he watches over me affectionately and cares for me watchfully. His word says that he is my healer, he is my peace, he is my strength when I am weak…and I BELIEVE THAT THE WORD OF GOD IS TRUE…Therefore, I can and will praise him in the midst of my situation which may appear contrary to his Word, knowing that he is faithful to complete the work he has begun in me if I will allow him to…I CHOOSE NOT TO QUIT BUT TO STAND BELIEVING HIS WORD!
Psalm 37:3-Trust, Lean on and be confident in the Lord and do good. So shall you dwell in the land and feed surely on his faithfulness and truly you shall be fed.
Heb 13:5 amp-…
For God himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake you nor let you down…Relax my hold on you?! Assuredly NOT!!!
1 peter 5:7-
Casting the whole of your care all your anxieties, all your worries all your concerns once and for all on him for he cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.
Philippians 4:6
Do not fret or have anxiety about anything but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition, definite request, with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God.
I could go on and on with scriptures like these but I feel like I have made the intended point, being, I am more than a conqueror through Christ who strengthens me…AND SO ARE YOU!!! You can praise God today for his faithfulness as he is at work in your situation as well…
I know that this trip through the fire has changed me immensely! I am not the same person that I was before. This fire has burned some major bondages off of me and actually helped me to have more spiritual insight than I have ever previously understood…God was and is right there in the fire with me and he is faithful to bring me all the way out! I am still facing some of the battles with all of this, but guess what…My God is Bigger than the battles I am facing…and I am continually progressing and conquering…and I will win this fight!
2 Chron 20:15,17
Be not afraid or dismayed at this great multitude; for the battle is not yours but God’s…You shall not need to fight in this battle, take your positions, stand still, and see the deliverance of the Lord..
I love this quote-“A person who worries still thinks in some way that he can solve his own problems…the proud man worries, the humble man waits”
I have been transparent in writing this while still going through it for a reason. First of all, we are all going to have to face fire in our lives at some point…I am hoping that you can find faith and hope in your battle/s by feeding off of some of mine today…I’m telling you, if there is one thing that I do not doubt, it is that My God is Faithful! What he’s done for me he’ll do for you…
I appreciate all of you, my friends…
God Bless You,
Aaron D. Davis
Matt 6:25-34
Therefore I tell you, stop being perpetually uneasy, anxious and worried about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, or about your body, what you should put on. Is not life greater in quality that food, and the body far above and more excellent than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly father keeps feeding them. Are you not worth much more than they?
And who of you by worrying and being anxious can add one unit of measure to his stature or to the span of his life?
And why should you be anxious about clothes? Consider the lilies of the field and learn thoroughly how they grow, they neither toil nor spin.
Yet I tell you, Even Solomon in all his magnificence, excellence, dignity, and grace, was not arrayed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is alive and green and tomorrow is tossed into the furnace, will he not much more surely clothe you, o you of little faith?
Therefore do not worry and be anxious saying, what are we going to have to eat? Or what are we going to have to Drink or what are we going to wear (or what are we going to do?)
For the gentiles, heathen wish for and diligently seek all these things and your heavenly father knows well that you need them all
But seek, aim at and strive after, first of all His Kingdom and his righteousness, his way of doing and being right and then all these things taken together will be given you besides
So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble.
