Even in the Fire: Choosing Trust When Answers Fall Short

There are questions that don’t come from curiosity but from heartbreak. They rise in the silence after devastating news. They echo in hospital corridors, funeral homes, and empty bedrooms. They are whispered in the night when tears will not stop falling. And one of those questions is this: If God is good, how could this happen?

It can feel impossible to hold onto God’s goodness when life breaks open in front of you. We know the scriptures. We’ve sung the songs. But sometimes those truths feel like they belong to someone else’s story, not ours.

If that’s where you are, hear this: you are not failing. You are not faithless. God does not rebuke you for the questions that pour out of your pain. He meets you in them. The psalms are full of cries just like yours, “Where are You, Lord? How long, O God?” Honest words from hearts that still, somehow, dared to believe He was listening.

Our minds reach for answers when our hearts break. We want to know the reason. We want a missing piece that will make sense of what we’ve lost. But the truth is, even if we had the answer to “why,” it would not heal us. Logic cannot stitch a torn heart. Explanations cannot dry tears in the night.

This is why Proverbs reminds us: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5–6). Understanding is too small a comfort for the vastness of grief. What our hearts truly need is not an answer but a Presence.

This is the goodness of God, not that He always removes the fire, but that He enters it with us. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were not spared the furnace. But when they were thrown in, there was a fourth man with them, one who looked like the Son of God. The fire that should have destroyed them became the place where His presence was revealed.

And so it is with us. The flames may rage. Deliverance may not look like we hoped. But we are not alone. He is Emmanuel, God with us. He has never left. His goodness is not proven by the absence of pain, but by His nearness within it.

The cross does not explain away our pain, but it does settle one question forever: Does God care? The answer is written in blood. “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all — how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

God did not stand at a distance from our suffering. He entered it. He bore it. He carried it to its end. The cross is the unshakable anchor that says: no matter what storms come, His goodness is not in question.

Paul writes that “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:3-5). That kind of hope is not shallow. It is not optimism. It is not denial. It is the deep-rooted hope that can only be grown in the soil of suffering, watered by tears, and held steady by the Spirit of God within us.

This hope does not erase the pain. But it keeps us from being consumed by it. It points us to a day when every tear will be wiped away, when mourning will be no more, when His goodness will fill the earth without shadow.

When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood before the king, they declared with boldness: “The God we serve is able to deliver us. But even if He does not, we will not bow” (Daniel 3:17–18).

That is not resignation. That is faith. Faith that clings to the unchanging goodness of God even when the outcome does not match the prayer. Faith that says: I know He can. I trust He is good. And even if I do not see the deliverance I long for, I will not bow to despair.

If you are carrying heartbreak right now, I will not offer you explanations. I will not give you easy answers. Instead, I want to remind you that you are not forgotten. You are not unseen. The Father has not turned His face from you. His goodness has not lessened. His presence has not withdrawn.

And perhaps, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, your faith will sound like this: “I know my God is able. But even if I do not see what I long for, I will still choose to trust His heart.”

This is not a light faith. It is not naïve. It is the kind of faith that carries you through fire. And you are not carrying it alone.

You are held. Even here. Even now. Even in the fire. His goodness has not left you.