Skip to main content

New Article: Focus on God’s Strength, Not Yours

 

               When reading scripture, it is easy to get the facts right and the application wrong.  Take the story of Daniel and the lion’s den for example.

               Five hundred years before Christ, a man named Daniel lived in the Persian Empire.  God blessed him, and he eventually rose to be second in command in the entire kingdom.  This displeased some of his coworkers because he was a foreigner and they decided to get rid of him.  After digging through his history and work records, they could find nothing wrong, so they came up with a different plan.

               They convinced King Darius that it would be a good idea to have everyone in the kingdom pray to him for the next month.  This would be unifying, and it would show loyalty to the king.  Darius thought this was a good idea and issued the order.

               In response, “Daniel… went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before” (Daniel 6:10-11).  The punishment for not following the order was that he was thrown into a den of lions.  As you likely know, God protected Daniel and the next morning he was found safe and sound.

               The application that we often make about this story is, “You need to be like Daniel!”  There is even a song called “Dare to be a Daniel” that encourages people to stand up for God, be courageous and do the right thing.  The problem is that I am not normally courageous, strong, and brave!  Telling me to try harder, be better and act like Daniel is discouraging. 

               Interestingly, though, nothing in scripture tells us that Daniel was brave on his own.  In fact, we know nothing about how he felt.  All we know is that he had confidence that his God could help him (see verses 11 and 23).  This story, like most others in the word of God, is not about a brave follower who stood up, but rather about someone who trusted God and got a much better result than they could have ever imagined.

               That is a much more encouraging lesson!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dark and Light

            When you look out at the world, what do you see?             Some see nothing but trouble and pain.   They point to things like poverty, crime, problems with drugs and alcohol and marriage break-ups and say that the world is full of sadness and sorrow.   Watch the news for even a half hour and you will get the idea that the world is a dark place.             Others see nothing but good.   They appreciate generous people in their community.   They think about their friends and neighbours and smile.   They marvel at the beauty of sunrises and stars at night.   To them, the world is a bright and wonderful place.             You may be surprised that the Bible supports both of these world views.   On one hand it says things like, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the
1 comment
Read more

New Article: Five Words to Improve Your Relationships

                 In the late 1800s, it was common for railway companies to plant formal gardens beside their stations.   These gardens were filled with trees, shrubs, flowers, and fruit trees.   Sometimes they also featured a kitchen garden growing lettuce, carrots, corn, and potatoes.   Estevan’s Canadian Pacific Railway Garden was once located where Mid-City Plumbing and Heating is today.                The purpose of these gardens was to show what the land could produce.   After hours and sometimes days of riding across the featureless prairies, the railways wanted to show settlers the potential of their new home.   The gardens showed what was possible and they encouraged the settlers to transform their own land and discover its potential too.                Today’s verse acts similarly, in that it challenges us to find the potential in
Post a Comment
Read more

Forgetting What Is Behind

                   Generalizations are helpful because they show a pattern that is normally true. However, they are also dangerous because they ignore the exceptions to the rule.                  Here is my generalization:   It is a quality of the strong to be able to forget the past and move on.   The apostle Paul summarizes this idea when he states, “One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God had called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). Too often, we trip over things that are behind us.   We remember and nurse old hurts.   We rehearse mistakes that no one else recalls.   In doing so, we pull the past into the present and allow it to dictate how we feel right now.   In these cases, we would be better off “forgett
Post a Comment
Read more