What is "Even If Not" about?

Even If Not

Even If Not · Storyflo

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.— Daniel 3:17-18

We have spent two days with the cry from the cross and the answer that came from the empty tomb. But there is one more thing worth lingering over.

Not a different story. A deeper layer of the same one.

When Jesus cried out My God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Mark 15:34), He was not only expressing anguish. He was praying Psalm 22, a psalm that begins in desolation and ends in vindication. But here is the question worth turning over slowly: did Jesus cry from the beginning of that psalm because He was looking ahead to its ending? Was His faith: although I am forsaken now, I trust I will be raised later?

Or was something else happening altogether?

Three men stood before a furnace that had been heated seven times hotter than usual (Dan. 3:19). King Nebuchadnezzar gave them one last chance. Bow, or burn.

Their answer has echoed through twenty-six centuries: our God is able to deliver us. But even if not, we will not serve your gods.

That last sentence is the one that arrests us. But even if not. They did not say: we trust God because He will save us. They said: we trust God. Full stop. The outcome was not the ground of their faith. God was.

This is a different kind of trust than most of us practice. Most of us trust God toward something. We believe He will come through. We hold on because we expect it to turn. That faith is real, and it has carried many people through many dark seasons. I have leaned on it myself more times than I can count.

But the three men in Daniel were not leaning on an expected outcome. They were leaning on God Himself. And that is a different weight entirely. And it is, I think, the most beautiful thing a human being can do.

Now consider what was happening on the cross.

Jesus did not carry the cross because He was calculating the resurrection. He carried it because He knew the Father. And knowing the Father was already enough.

The Apostle Paul uses a precise word for what God did there. He delivered up Jesus, gave him over for us all (Rom. 4:25; 8:32). This is the language of purpose, not abandonment. And Jesus, in the absolute trust of the Son, received it that way.

One faith says: although God has given me over, I trust He will raise me.

The other says something that goes even further. Not He will raise me. Not even He is raising me. But: in the very act of being given over, I am already raised. The cross is not the prelude to glory. The cross is glory.

The proof is in what Jesus said the moment Judas walked out into the darkness to hand Him over: “Now is the Son of Man glorified” (John 13:31). Not soon. Not eventually. Now. The moment the betrayal was set in motion, Jesus declared glorification as already present.

In that faith, there is no gap between death and resurrection. No distance between the giving over and the raising up. They are not two events connected by hope. They are one movement. The Father’s love. The Father’s purpose. The Son’s absolute trust. All three, holding together what looked like the end.

To be given over by God is already to be held within His saving will.

This is why, when Jesus breathed His last, He did not cry out in despair. He declared: tetelestai (τετέλεσται), it is finished (John 19:30). Not a collapse. A completion. The word of someone who knows that what looks like the end is, in the hands of this God, already the beginning.

In Christ, death and resurrection are not separated by three days of uncertainty. The cross was not the negation of love. It was its most radical expression.

This is the faith that needs no outcome. Not because outcomes do not matter, but because the one who holds the outcome is already trusted completely. There is no calculation. No hedging. No although. Only because, and therefore.

They did not walk into the fire expecting a miracle. They walked in having already settled the question of who God is. And that is the difference. The miracle, when it came, was not what sustained them. Their trust in God had already sustained them before the fourth man appeared.

The three men walked into the fire and found someone already there (Dan. 3:25). Jesus walked into death and became the one who is already there, in every darkness since.

I do not know what you are walking into. But I know this: the God who gave His Son over did not do it carelessly. He did it because giving over and raising up, in His hands, have always been the same movement.

And that is a fearsome thing. Not because it is reckless. Because it is free.

Most of us practice although faith. We trust God despite what we see, looking toward what we hope will come. That faith is not wrong. It is precious and it is real.

But there is a deeper place. A faith that does not need to see the ending before it trusts. A faith that says: whatever this is, You are in it. And because You are in it, it is already moving toward life.

That is the faith Jesus carried to the cross. Not a faith that survived the darkness. A faith that knew the darkness was already, in the Father’s hands, dawn.

Even if not — He is still my God. And that has always been enough.

Before you turn the page, be still for a moment. Is your trust in God, or in what you expect God to do? Stay with that.

i. Think of a season when your faith depended on a particular outcome. What happened to that faith when the outcome did not come the way you hoped? What would because/therefore faith have looked like in that moment?

ii. The three men said but even if not before they knew how the story would end. What would it mean for you to say those words, and mean them, in something you are facing right now?

Lord, I confess that most of my faith has been although faith. I have trusted You toward outcomes. I have held on because I expected You to come through in the way I hoped. And when the answer was slow, or when it came differently than I imagined, my trust has sometimes wavered.

Teach me the other kind. The faith that does not need to see the ending. The faith that says: because You are my God, and because You gave Your Son over in order to raise Him, I can trust that whatever You are doing in this darkness is already moving toward life.

You are not a God who abandons. You are a God who gives over, and giving over, in Your hands, is always the first movement of raising up.

Let that be enough for me today. Even here. Even now.

Even if not — You are still my God. And that has always been enough.

In the name of Jesus, who trusted the Father completely, and was raised. Amen.