The Testing of Our Faith

The Testing of Our Faith

Carolyn

When life is going well, it’s not hard to live lives of faith. Everything is happy! It’s not hard to believe in a good God.

But when life is hard, when suffering enters, when hardship comes, when challenges emerge (as we are assured they will this side of heaven) — this is when our faith is really lived, when “the rubber meets the road” of our faith. In the testing, in the suffering, God refines us, shows us where our faith lacks, and if we trust Him, makes us stronger in Him and in faith through it. This is when the journey walked with Christ becomes real and exciting! This is opportunity.

And here’s the clincher: the outcome of these trials and hardships, though important, do not matter as much as the faithfulness of God to us in them and our seeking to be faithful to Him in response. In these moments, we can declare that God IS good, no matter what comes to us, because He is in fact good and is faithful.

We have an example of this in Daniel 3. You may know the familiar story. The pagan king Nebuchadnezzar builds a golden statue and commands that all worship it. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse. (Cue the children’s song in many of our minds!)

Note: their real names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Daniel 1:6-7). When taken into captivity in Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar, they, along with Daniel, were given names intended to honor the false gods of Babylon. The intent was to change their identities, to have these men assimilate into this Babylonian culture. They were trained for three years in the Chaldean language and literature to serve in King Nebuchadnezzar’s palace. They were chosen as ones for these roles of serving in the king’s palace because they were “some of the Israelites from the royal family and from the nobility….”

Let that sink in for a minute. They were selected for these roles, targeted if you will, because of their royalty. The enemy, the Babylonians, were looking for the best of the Israelites to bring under their tutelage and instruction, to assimilate them into their ways. Does this sound familiar?

As Christians, we are royalty, a royal priesthood, a chosen people of God’s own possession (1 Peter 2:9). There is an enemy who will target us (John 10:10; 1 Peter 5:8). Ephesians 6:10-20 reminds us that our enemy is not against flesh and blood, but “against the rulers, the powers, the world forces of this darkness, the spiritual powers of wickedness in the heavenly places.” And the enemy today seeks to bring people under his delusions and control, using all kind of forces for training them up, from media to worldly ideology. We must be aware of these schemes if we are to stand against them.

Let’s also take a moment to be thankful for faithful preachers and teachers who not only teach God’s Word, but live it, who have not capitulated to the demands of our culture, but who stand firm on the Word of God. Encourage and pray for them.

Right from the start of their captivity, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah refused to be like the culture around them (Daniel 1). And the Lord blessed them. God gave these four young men knowledge and understanding and wisdom. (Daniel 1:17)

Back to Daniel 3, King Nebuchadnezzar made this 90-foot gold statue to which the people were to fall down and worship when music played. Some took the occasion to maliciously accuse Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who would not worship the statue. They were brought before the ungodly king Nebuchadnezzar and told they would be thrown into the furnace of blazing fire if they did not worship it.

Maliciously accused. Brought before an unjust king. Thrown into the fire. Things weren’t looking good.

King Nebuchadnezzar asked, “Who is the god who can rescue you from my power?”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego give this beautiful reply:

“O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, 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).

In his fury, Nebuchadnezzar charged that they would be thrown into the fiery furnace, set 7 times hotter. The strongest soldiers who threw them in died from the flames. When Nebuchadnezzar looked into the flames, he saw four men walking in the fire unharmed. When they were brought out of the furnace, “the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them” (4:27). Nebuchadnezzar ends up blessing God who had delivered them!

These godly young men stood strong in the Lord and in their faith in Him. They didn’t waver, even when circumstances looked bleak. They were able to do this because they had earlier resolved in their hearts (see Daniel 1) to follow and serve the only true God. When the moment of testing came, they were ready. They didn’t decide He wasn’t worthy of trusting when these bad times came. Instead, they knew He was absolutely worthy and declared that even if this didn’t turn out like they would hope, they nevertheless would serve no other gods or bow to them.

I hope none of us are ever maliciously accused, brought before an unjust ruler, or thrown into a fire! But it’s actually quite possible when there is an enemy after our faith, our souls, the “accuser of the brethren” (Revelation 12:10), who deceives and seeks our harm, our callings, and our influence for Christ in the world. This is not flesh and blood, but the world forces of wickedness. We must learn to stand up. To believe. To trust. For Christ Himself will stand with us, as He stood in the fire with them, and fight our battles. Think of the story they had to tell when they emerged from the fire! A story we are still telling today.

Let this encourage you, no matter what you are walking through, to trust your worthy Savior. To praise Him in and for the opportunities, the testing of your faith, to prove His worth and faithfulness, to give glory to His name.

 “Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4 (NASB)

This past year (2025-2026) in Bible Study Fellowship (BSF), in the “Exile and Return” study, we studied 8 books of the Bible, including Daniel (Lessons 3-8 in Fall 2025). I’m going back to record some of my observations from the study. If you are interested in studying the Bible with others in BSF, go to bsfinternational.org to find a group for next year (2026-2027). They will be studying Romans. There are in-person and online options available, and registration is now open.

Happy New Year 2026!

Happy New Year 2026!

Carolyn

Happy New Year! I’m writing from a winter wonderland. Winter Storm Fern, which has blanketed much of the nation, perhaps also impacting you, is here. I hear the sounds of ice hitting the house windows after snowfall all night. Will it stay a beautiful landscape of snow and a little sleet or develop into more?

We prepped as advised all week, and now we wait to see how it will finish up today. For the moment, we have power, and I am grateful to be tucked in warm on this early Sunday morning with church canceled. Our church sent out a recorded service yesterday, and I’ll enjoy watching Livestream from our Chicagoland church later this morning.

I hope this new year is off to a great start for you! I would love to know what new year practices you have — any goals, “resolutions,” new habits? And how are things looking almost 4 weeks into the new year?

If you are trying something new, don’t be discouraged if it’s not perfect progress; just pick up where you are and start again! (This is what I tell myself!) The idea behind January 1 and fresh starts can actually be any day of the year when we wake up and decide to do something different than we were doing before. Reflection and examination are always valuable, even as a daily or weekly practice to review what went well and what could use improvement.

A new year practice I’ve had, since at least 2008 when I started this blog, is choosing a theme or word for the year. As I looked back, I realized it was 18 years ago when I started writing in this space.

I was thinking the other day how blogs seem to be a thing of the past. Today, it’s vlogs, podcasts, videos, social media (images, reels, shorts), things that are much more visual/audiovisual, and much less written. That’s not to say there isn’t as much reflection in these new mediums. It’s simply a new way of communicating.

But it does seem it’s become harder to focus these days with so much grasping for our attention. Maybe you can identify with opening your phone to look for one thing and 15 minutes later, realizing you have no idea what that was! Sometimes, my mind feels cluttered and distracted by it all. Is a hashtag the limit of what I can absorb, as I scroll mindlessly on? And how much do I miss of what’s actually important, while consuming content that doesn’t matter?

Even group messages through WhatsApp, GroupMe, Signal, Messenger, and texting (the list goes on of ever increasing messaging platforms), with various groups and subsets of those groups, not to mention promotional emails that flood our inboxes, make it hard to keep up with all the data coming at us constantly and demanding a response. When and how can we rest and be still?

With the advance of AI, I suspect the art of writing will diminish more (but not the need for it). Even now in WordPress, to the right of this post, there are AI suggestions for the title and giving feedback for the content structure. Perhaps it would be helpful, but it requires less of me and removes some things that are worthwhile efforts. Perhaps all the technological advances free us up for other things, but again, where do we slow down even to create? Are we only being “influenced,” or do we influence with things that are true, good, and beautiful?

I’m sure many of us have seen the value in journaling, reflecting, processing, and growing through the slower means of Bible reading and prayer. It’s not flashy, but it’s rewarding to slow down with and before the Lord. I value that process, and I’ve experienced its blessings. This is a value I want to develop through the Lord’s strength in 2026.

In that regard, I got Crossway’s five-volume spiral-bound journaling Bible set. It breaks the Bible into five volumes: Pentateuch; Historical Books; Poetry; Prophets; and New Testament. Though these books were much larger than I realized, they are beautiful and provide plenty of space to write and engage with Scripture.

Back to my word for the year, this year it’s freedom. As is the case when you focus on a particular word, it will show up a lot.

I get the Worship Initiative song devotionals each day (highly recommend!). The song for January 1 was “Who You Say I Am,” with these words: “Free at last, He has ransomed me, His grace runs deep. While I was a slave to sin, Jesus died for me… Who the Son sets free, Oh is free indeed, I’m a child of God, yes, I am.” That’s true freedom and a great place to begin the new year.

Our church’s sermon on January 11 was all about freedom, gospel freedom, liberation in Christ. True freedom comes from being bound to Christ. We can think of God’s ways as being restrictive, but that’s where we are free to flourish. Much like a fish isn’t free when he jumps out of the water onto land, so we too need to stay within the boundaries God has given for our true freedom and life.

This year, I praise God for that foundational freedom, while looking for freedom in other ways. Perhaps freedom from social media and the challenges described above. Or maybe freedom from anxiety that comes with consuming too much noise and news, like about a winter storm. Yes, I want the wisdom to know and prep, but not to absorb exaggerated concerns and fear.

The ongoing process of our purifying sanctification can be challenging, yet so good, leading to greater freedom as we walk with the Lord! I pray 2026 will be a blessed year in the Lord for you!

The Lord Is Near

The Lord Is Near

Carolyn

What do you do when you can’t sleep? Sometimes I simply wait it out, eventually falling back to sleep. While I suppose that keeps me in a restful state waiting on sleep to return, I also later feel those were wasted hours! Sometimes then, I’ll get up to read or pray, in hopes it will make me sleepy, so at least I can feel like I was being productive!

Last Saturday night, when I couldn’t sleep, I got up to pray. Three verses came to mind:

“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).

“Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:5-7).

“Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8a).

I don’t remember how I arrived at thinking about those verses and the nearness of the Lord. I think I was praying for friends who had lost a loved one, grieving with them, praying for the nearness of God to their broken hearts. My mind probably then took off on the theme of God’s nearness and where else we find that word in Scripture, those being familiar passages to me.

When I got up later that Sunday morning, I started reading “Preparing for the Lord’s Day,” a weekly post our church puts out to prepare us for worship. In it, it said, “To prepare for worship, spend time reading and meditating on… Psalm 34:15–22, Philippians 4:4–7…, and James 5:13–18.”

Two of those passages contained the verses I had pondered in the night, and the third one was one chapter later, but only a page away in my Bible. The sermon focus was not on the nearness of God, but on how God calls every Christian to pray. But it was interesting to see those three Scriptures again being reinforced.

Yesterday, I was looking up a devotional book at Amazon, glancing quickly at the sample pages. The sample devotional started with, “The Lord is near….” quoting after it those verses from Philippians 4:5-7. This sample devotional page from the book was in the context of anxiety: “if the Lord is near, everything changes. You aren’t alone, and the one who is in control, to order and provide, he’s near and he cares for you and he is involved.” (David Powlison).

Today, I opened my photos to go back and find a photo with a friend from a visit I remembered in 2018, and beside those photos was this random one I had saved 7 years ago, not even remembering it, nor now knowing its source:

What do we make of times where the Lord keeps bringing a repeated message? I’m not sure, but one thing, if nothing else, is simply encouragement. We can be encouraged with the message that comes to us through God’s Word and in prayer. We may or may not see an exact application, but we can remember it and hold on to it.

Who couldn’t be encouraged with the thought that, in all of our circumstances, the Lord is near. He sees you, He knows you, He knows what you are going through, He knows your joys and your sorrows, and He is near. Not distant, but right there with you, drawing near to you when you draw near to Him. The Lord is near; we have no reason to fear!

That’s a message I can go with today! Perhaps it will encourage you too.

“But as for me, the nearness of God is my good;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, That I may tell of all Your works.”
Psalm 73:28

Rainbows and Promises

Carolyn

Photos from October 2, 2024; July 18, 2025; July 31, 2025

A rainbow (according to an AI overview!) is an “optical and meteorological phenomenon that occurs when sunlight interacts with water droplets, typically rain, in the atmosphere.” I suppose its name “rainbow” suggests that it’s connected with rain, this bow in the sky.

In the Bible, Genesis 6:18 and 9:9-17 are the first mentions of the word “covenant,” directly related to Noah and the flood. This Noahic covenant was between God and Noah and his descendants after him. It was the promise that God would never again flood the earth or cut off all flesh with a flood. The sign of this covenant was a rainbow. God would look on it and remember His everlasting covenant.

The rainbow, then, was directly tied to rain. It appropriately comes in connection with rain, after a storm, as a visible sign of God’s promise and faithfulness to all living beings. And it wasn’t just for Noah and his family in his day; it was a covenant for ALL generations to come and for ALL life on earth. It can serve to remind us that on the other side of life’s storms, there is a sure and certain promise that He who promised is faithful, and we can have hope.

I’ve written before about how God has used rainbows to encourage me. And I’ve included a few rainbows above since that time that the Lord has given me on specific days, at just the right moment where I’ve needed to remember His promises.

In the third photo above, I had just come back from the prayer garden and chapel where I go to pray. Light rain had ended, and my husband said this is the kind of weather where you might see a rainbow. For a moment, in my heart, I confess I thought, “Yeah, but do I make more from this than I should? If there is one, isn’t it just another rainbow?” I walked outside anyway, wishing to see more.

Then my eye caught it, the rainbow in the sky. It was pretty and nice. But then I saw something lower, just over the trees, an incredibly bold and brilliant rainbow! There were two, and the lower one was the deeper one. I had to go to a better spot in my neighborhood to see the lower one a little higher in the sky than I could on my back deck (photo below). The two rainbows together were a picture of His glory, of God once again patiently being willing to show me more, to remind me He can do more than I ask, think, or imagine. He is faithful and worthy of our trust.

“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” 2 Corinthians 1:20

A Hopeful Prayer of Trust

A Hopeful Prayer of Trust

Carolyn

I recently found this prayer in my journal, written at the start of 2024, almost a year and a half ago. With Easter week approaching, these themes encourage my heart as I reflect on who God is and all He has done for us in Christ.

Sovereign LORD, You are all powerful. In the midst of life’s storms, You enter the boat of our lives and calm our anxious hearts and fears. You bring peace and joy even when, especially when, circumstances aren’t what we would wish or hope for. We all live—all humanity—broken, earthbound lives. But You entered into our brokenness and were broken for us. You are the bread of life, the body broken. I believe You are the Victor, the One who saves, the mighty warrior who rejoices over us and tells us everything will be okay. Everything will work out in the end, not because of our worth, but Yours; not because of our works, but Your work, your finished work.

You are the great I am, the faithful, covenantal God who keeps your Word and promises. You are Jehovah Yahweh, full of grace and truth. If the Lord is on our side, who can be against us? You are a miracle worker. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ, in whom we live and move and have our being. We are at best your unprofitable servants, who fail and sin so easily, yet you redeem, forgive, revive, rebuild, restore, renew—You are making all things new!

So I will return again in humility and repentance to seek your face. Your face will I seek in the morning and look up. In the midday and evening, in remembrance, for You do great things, and nothing is too hard for You. Praise You, Lord, and thank You. Apart from You, I can do nothing, and in me dwells no good thing. But You are the God who fills with springs of living water, gives your Spirit, and satisfies our weary souls. You comfort my heart and dry my tears and tell me You save and it will be okay. So I rest in your unfailing love that your beauty might be upon me, even as I TRUST in You.

I don’t have to fear today, because You are with me, to uphold and protect, to walk with and provide. I can leave all my concerns and worries to be safely held in your arms, the arms that spread wide on a cross to tell me of your love that would die for me, your saving right arm, extended and strong, for whom there is no rival and no one and nothing can stand against. You are so good, majestic, powerful, strong, holy, righteous, merciful, just, wise and true. Help me walk in your way with an undivided heart to fear your name, my Lord and my God. Amen.

I’ll close with this new song, “What an Awesome God,” released yesterday from Phil Wickham. I heard Rich Mullins sing the original when I was in college after its release in 1988. Then my husband and I heard Phil Wickham sing this updated version in concert in Greensboro about 3 weeks ago, where he shared he had written three new verses for a new generation. I hear the themes of Revelation and of Easter in the prayer and in the song, as we were made to worship our awesome God. I pray you have a joyous Easter week, celebrating our Risen Savior!