Stand strong in the midst of the storms of life. It resonates with our hearts doesn’t it?? It is the theme of the greatest stories ever told. It calls us to something larger than what the daily grind seems to offer. The problem however is this… when the actual storms arrive, they seem to overwhelm our resolve to stand strong. Standing strong in the face of adversity is not quite as glamorous as we anticipated. We focus on the standing strong part, but we underestimate the storm part. Somehow holding onto our commitment to endure is not as simple as we had hoped.
However, as you read the greatest stories, they usually do not minimize the difficulties or the challenges. In fact, they seem to understand that it is the affliction that defines the greatness of the script and its cast of characters. Only in light of significant pain can we see greatness of character forged. So it is with our lives… as well as it was in the lives of those who have gone before us.
Daniel is one of those who modeled a life worth emulating when it comes to standing strong. He was taken captive as a young teenager, shipped off to a foreign land, placed in an intensive training program designed to strip him of his identity and replace it with one that fit the decadence of his new surroundings. Yet, Daniel and his three friends were determined to hold onto their convictions in the face of tremendous pressure. Daniel, especially, displayed an honesty married to a skillful finesse that proved to be amazingly effective. His character was such that God could dynamically use him to impact the Babylonians in his day as well as in ours.
Chapter 1 of Daniel sets the stage for an incredible story that will unfold through the next five chapters. In that first chapter we discover a three tiered truth: first, that who we are determines what we do. Our culture thinks it is the opposite… that what we do determines who we are. That is why the winds of change, disappointment, failure, and rejection undo us. That is why our successes do not actually satisfy and at times strangely enough unwittingly undo us also. It is the inner person that determines the true direction of our lives in spite of all the ups and downs of life. The second is this… what we do demonstrates or proclaims what we believe. We can verbalize all sorts of things to the world around us, but it is not hard to understand what someone actually believes about life… just observe what they do, how they treat people, how they handle the hurts of the past and their present, and what the do when they think people are not watching. If we believe we deserve to be vindicated for all that has gone on in life then we will defend ourselves with a viciousness that will aim to destroy those in our path and we believe are responsible for my own broken character and dreams. Third … what we believe will speak loud and clear to the world around us, for good or for bad, one way or the other… our actions speak. So the question is this… what are you saying with your life.
This is exactly what happened in Daniel’s life. He held onto his God given identity and it determined what he did. What he did demonstrated his fundamental belief system to which he was committed. What he committed himself to doing ended up influencing his the culture for the next seventy years and he served the Babylonians and the Persians. He never got to go home to Israel, at least not physically. But his legacy went back. His influence went back. His wisdom went back. His insight when back. His prophetic understanding went back. God used Daniel then as well as in the time of Christ. Where else would Wise Men have learned about the coming of the Messiah marked by a star that lead them. Daniel had prepared the Babylonians to come and worship the incarnate Son of God as he lay in a manger. He is still preparing us to worship the God of the ages, the one who raises up and brings to their knees the empires of the ages in a providential journey toward an eternal kingdom where Christ is King forever.
Kevin