When Nimrod the wicked cast Abraham into the fiery furnace for smashing his father's idols, the angel Gabriel stepped forward in the heavenly court. Ribbono shel Olam, Master of the Universe, he pleaded, send me down. Let me cool the flames and bring your servant out alive.
The Holy One, blessed be He, answered gently. I am One in My world, and Abraham is one in his. It is fitting that the One should deliver the one. The rescue would come from no intermediary. God Himself went down to the furnace.
Yet the Holy One does not withhold reward from any creature, not even for an unfulfilled intention. Because you wished to save My beloved, said God to Gabriel, you will have the honor of saving three of his descendants. Keep that promise in your wing.
Generations later, when Nebuchadnezzar cast Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah into the furnace of Babylon (Daniel 3:20), the angel Yurkami, prince of hail, rose before the throne. Let me go down, he said, and quench the flames with my ice. But Gabriel stepped forward. The promise is mine, he said. And into the furnace Gabriel went, making the fire a cool wind around the three young men who would not bow.
The lesson this passage from Hebraic Literature (1901) preserves from the Talmud: good intentions are banked in heaven like gold. What you wished to do for the righteous, God remembers when their children need rescuing.