I was recently reading the book of Daniel when I noticed how fickle man can be. The southern kingdom of Judah was invaded by Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzer. God’s people were taken captive and exiled in Babylon. He then ordered for young men who were handsome, smart and of nobility to be culturally integrated over a period of 3 years. Daniel and his three friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were among this group of noble young men. As we read through Daniel 1-3. They showed the most promise and were promoted to high positions in the government. They had the king’s favour. Doing their very best and all they were instructed to do. They still remembered their homes and they remembered their God. Until suddenly, for not worshipping an idol, Daniel’s three friends, whose names had then respectively changed to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, were thrown into a furnace that was heated to temperatures that incinerated even the guards who led the convicted to their expected deaths. Their faithfulness to God redeemed them. They left the furnace unscathed, and they were immediately restored to the king’s favour and were promoted, with glory and honour to “their” God.

How many of us have gone through experiences of the flip-floppiness of man? Be it a boss we have had favour with one day, and the next we are banished to unemployment. Maybe we had close friends who one day did life with us and the next abandoned us to isolation. Worst of all, a spouse who professed their love for us one day became cold towards us or betrayed us the next.

Where does your hope and trust lie? In fickle man, or our never changing, always the same, faithful God?

Malachi 3: 6

“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”

I was amused to compare the converse of such fickleness when we read, in the book of Acts from chapters 7 to 9, about Saul. Saul was a Roman born Jewish Scholar who had it in for the traitorous apostates who were now following Jesus. He was there at the stoning of Stephen and was on a witch hunt to destroy all Jesus’ followers. Until Jesus himself revealed himself to Saul. Saul was blinded from this experience and through a series of God’s messages through His messengers Saul’s sight is restored and he becomes a Jesus follower, the biggest gentile converter and the man who wrote most of what we know as the New Testament. Can you imagine the church when they heard that Saul, converted to Paul, was now loving on them rather than trying to get them killed? How distrusting must they have initially been? Ananias, the guy Jesus told to speak to Saul in his blind and destitute state, himself was reluctant. But if not for his obedience who then would have been the greatest evangelist of the gentile world?

Man is fickle. You can never know when things or relationships will change or evolve. But the one who is never changing and never fickle is our creator God who knows us inside out and uses us anyway. We are not to be distressed or worried when these things happen, God uses all things for His glory if we trust Him enough. Just look at Shad, Mesh and Abs.

2 Timothy 2:13

“If we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”

I’ll tell you why they were different, sure they were strapping young men, but they were smart and they remembered. They remembered who they were, they remembered where they came from, they remembered their God. They were not shaken, they were prepared to go to their deaths for what they believed in. If any of us were taken captive, brought to another land and forced to adopt that nation’s ways, would we be able to remember who we were, where we came from and who our God was?

I was really encouraged when I read

2 Timothy 3: 11-14

persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,

That takes remembering that God will remain faithful through it all.