In desperation I practically ran to the altar searching the faces of the workers, hoping I’d choose just the right one. I was drawn to her like a magnet. My body grew weak from the weight of my problem but I managed somehow, by His grace, to share with her the heaviness of my heart.

I don’t remember the sermon on that day over a decade ago but I remember her expression and even more her words. She was a soothing calm to my wretched mess. I tried to find eloquent words to share my problem, this nagging question that had consumed me and opened the door to tormenting fear. The compassion in her eyes was undeniable but without hesitation she spoke those two words that would change my life forever. . .

“So what?”

So what? Her words didn’t sting like one might think. They were not trite words from someone hoping to insert the correct answer here. Those words were from someone who had walked a road far harder than the one I had feared walking then. They were words she, too, had faced.  They were Rhema piercing right through me.

She continued, “so what if it’s true?” What if the thing that I was fearing the most right then were true? “What are you going to do then,” she asked.

Her words—His Words through her—brought the clarity I needed to move forward that day. They would stick with me forever and become my theme, the bottom line for every problem that would come my way.

So what?

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.

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.

But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. ~ Daniel 3:16-18

Like those three Hebrew children I knew my God was well able. The thing that I had feared most back then was not likely a reality. But what if it were? So what if? What then? Would I bow the knee to despair and succumb to defeat? Or would I declare that He is still God?

Eventually we have to look the problem we are facing square in the eyes. We have to look the enemy square in the eyes and we have to ask ourselves what if? What if the cancer isn’t healed this side of eternity? What if he leaves you? What if they fire you?  What if foreclosure is inevitable? What if your dreams don’t become a reality or your son or daughter never returns home? What then?

I was reminded today of those two little words that spoke so powerfully to me so many years ago when I read Ann’s post here.

God’s purposes are not for me to understand His plans: His plan is for me to understand Who He is. ~ Ann Voskamp

Sometimes it takes years for us to ask what if. But if we will realize that it is us He is wanting to change in the midst of the circumstances we are wanting Him to change and we will surrender the answers to Him, we will find freedom. We will find victory. We will find Him. I learned then that my peace was not in the answers I’d hoped for. It’s not always easy to walk it out but the truth is still the same. “Peace is a person.”

I’ll keep standing and keep believing Him in the midst of my current circumstances. When the finances are low, relationships strained, addictions destroying, when hearts are breaking I will believe Him. I know He is well able. I believe He will. But what if He doesn’t? What then?

What about your circumstances? What if the answer is no when you are hoping for a yes? What if the thing you are facing, the thing you fear most, is true? What then?

When facing our fiery furnaces let’s believe together that He will deliver us. Let’s not bow the knee to defeat but declare that even if He doesn’t. . . He is still God.