Delivered From the Lion’s Den

“Then these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help.”

— Daniel 6:11 (NIV)

LIFE is in the hand of humanity.  But humanity so rarely avails itself of life.

It seems too risky, especially when the stakes have risen above every human conception of reasonability; we learn so early on that some risks are not worth taking, yet the very life that could save us is never touched.

To live bold is to live free.

To live free is to live devoted to the Lord, as Daniel verily was.

Daniel’s life should not so much impress us as it should be the example for our own.

Why are we so impressed regarding Daniel’s life when it is just an example of a disciple obeying his Lord?

God would prefer us make little of the greatness of Daniel’s life, so as to make it our own.  Think of the Satraps and Administrators — perhaps all 123 of them — staking out Daniel.  They think they have their man!  They catch him ‘red-handed’, praying aloud in his room, yes, even with a window open.

Daniel was no fool, yet he also lacked no courage of conviction for zeal to the Lord.

He knew what was happening, and indeed he had not only anticipated it, he perhaps invited what was now taking place — “How foolish of you to compel the King to publish a decree so despicable that it makes waste of a person’s right of religious liberty!”

I wonder if Daniel knew where this was going.  Daniel was a prophet given to many a vision.  God, it is probable, gave him a discerned knowledge of what was to take place; at least so far as the brewing religious storm he was entering.

Daniel cowered to nothing except to bow before the Lord, which is also our role.

If, in the discharge of his life, Daniel was to die for his allegiance, he knew that God is faithful; that he’d never be forgotten or forsaken.

In our day, with the very terrifying death cults about, on the News every night, we are tempted to call an end to our lives before they have actually begun. Let us take courage if and when the fight of faith is brought to our doorstep. We fight as disciples, holy enough to pray, and to resist non-violently; the antithesis of cowardice, which is to stand yet not fight as the world would fight.

We fight by not fighting. But not fighting means staying and standing.

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Delivered from the lion’s den is the faithful subject of the King who does what only through faith they can do.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.