Artist: Michelle Bentham
Size: 9×12,Cold Pressed Paper
Medium: Watercolor
Date: February 17, 2021
This work was commissioned by a woman who spends her life on behalf of others. She walks through the fires of other people’s lives and doesn’t even smell like smoke. She asked me to paint her something around the Hillsong anthem, “Another in the Fire.”
This song, based on the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, speaks about the grace that God offers us when we walk through the fires of life. In Daniel 3, three Jewish captives serving as eunuchs refused to do as King Nebuchadnezzar commanded them to do because it dishonored God. That disobedience carried the consequence of the three men being thrown into a fiery furnace alive. But, as those who guarded the furnace watched they saw the men standing in the fire unburned and noted there was a fourth man standing with them in the fire.
“If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods nor worship the golden statue that you have set up.”
Daniel 3:17-18 NASB
These men knew that God would protect them and rescue them. They knew His goodness and believed He would serve God. As I painted this painting I felt that goodness over my friend’s life. She stepped into difficult places and seasons with people bearing the heat of the fire in their lives even when it added to her own life’s fiery circumstances. I heard the words, “There’ll be peace in the fire.”
The fires of life, even the enemy’s fiery darts carry nothing for us to fear when we walk with Jesus as our Lord and Savior. 1 John 3:18 says that when we are in Christ, our lives change and as we grow we grow in Him and away from sin and the things in life that bring fire all around us. We can literally walk in the fire and not be consumed by it. Jesus is our consuming fire-Esh Oklah-the one who consumes without destroying who brings fire to purify and not devour. He will never leave us or forsake us. He is the Other One in our fires and He brings us out so we don’t even smell llike smoke.
Original Artwork & Art Stories ©2021 Michelle Bentham. All Rights Reserved
