"If not" faith

Daniel 3:15- 18
"¹⁵ Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?"

¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. ¹⁷ If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. ¹⁸ But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."

I remember doing the spiritual gifts test and finding one of my gifts to be faith. It made me wonder, as does this passage, of how far faith can take us. I took a big leap of faith going to America- and yet it felt like nothing, especially in comparison to stepping into a blazing furnace. It amazes me to think that God is there even in the toughest times. Kind of puts stepping into university into perspective. Really compared to what these guys went through, or many other people throughout the world who are persecuted for their faith, I have it easy.

It's also cool to see that their faith is not simply because they know what God will do. Obviously they would hope that God would protect them- but really, who knows what God's going to do? They just said "even if He doesn't save us, we aren't going to worship." It's always a risk to step out in faith, but God is a God of love.

"Nothing that happens can harm me,
Whether I lose or win.
Though life may be changed on the surface,
I do my main living within."

Just read a really deep thing. "We must have a love for God so strong that even if everything around us was stripped away -our work, family, health, status - we would still go on loving Him regardless."

I think that's a tough challenge. I do know in times of trouble I run to God, like a child who scraps their knee runs to a parent. It's kind of hard to predict what I would do in a situation where I was left with nothing. I would hope that I would think that truly I could never have nothing because God will not leave me nor forsake me.