“I can’t sleep.” Have you ever pulled up the sheets, put your head on the pillow and yet four hours later you’re still wide awake? If you’re getting to play in the Home Coming game, you’re getting married the next evening, or you’re heading for Colorado for your first elk hunt, the sleeplessness is sweet. You’re anticipating joy and happiness. But some of you couldn't sleep last week for hard reasons.
Some of you lost 30 % of your retirement savings in hours, and you couldn’t move a finger to try and stop the bleeding. Some of you lost your jobs, like the school teachers in Dallas, because someone underestimated salaries by two or three thousand dollars. Multiply this over hundreds of employees, Voila! It adds up to over 60 million and hundreds get their pink slips. No wonder you can’t sleep.
For some of you the loss of savings for retirement or the loss of a career means absolutely nothing. You’ve lost your health and face the big peace destroyer—death. Loss, uncertainty, and fear-- it all adds up to sleepless nights.
For many children Daniel in the lions’ den is one of their favorite bed time Bible stories. Maybe your parents used this story to help you calm down and go back to sleep in the midst of a scary thunder storm. I believe God’s Spirit wants to use this story in the midst of some of the storms we are facing as adults to remind us how Daniel learned to sleep with the lions.
His first step was not to hole up in his mid-eighties. He could have easily retired after the Babylonian Empire collapsed. (That's even bigger than a Wall street Collapse.) He was plenty old enough to settle in to his condo on the Persian Gulf. Instead, when you open to chapter 6 of his book, he is ruling the new Persian Empire with two other guys, and the king is considering the possibility of making him the Prime Minister. It was this total involvement with the new regime that created enemies—enemies that wanted to throw him to the lions.
If our enemies decided to bring us down, if they did extensive research on our daily conduct, evaluated whether or not we carried through and actually did what we said we would do on the job, if they searched for corruption, laziness, or negligence, would they be able to take us out because we are talkers, not doers? The Spirit of God who lived in Daniel lives in us and He is working to create in us the character that he created in Daniel. Daniel could sleep, even with lions, because he had integrity in his career.
The only vulnerability that his enemies could detect was that he practiced what he believed. Three times a day he connected with the great I Am, the true God. He had done this for years, and when the decree went out from Darius, Daniel didn’t protest with a placard in the streets, he simply went right on praying. He continued to have his time with God early in the morning, at noon, and in the evening.
If we want to sleep with the lions of economic decline, a job loss, or illness, we need to follow Daniel's example and spend time listening to God and talking to Him every day. If we connect with Daniel’s God, we connect with the King who never dies, whose kingdom never collapses, and who has the final say over any "lion" who wants to chew on us.
Here are three questions I ask myself after watching Daniel in action:
What changes do I need to make in my conduct this week so that enemies of Jesus will not be able to find any ground for accusing me?
Will I defeat the lions of laziness, procrastination, and coldness of heart, and commit myself
to connecting daily with God in His Word and in prayer?
Will I ask someone to hold me accountable for my daily time with God?
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
The Writings on the Wall
At our Wednesday night prayer and study time Sam Rodgers shared with our group a riveting story about the time he almost drowned in a Tennessee river.
The swimming hole was the perfect place to escape the Tennessee heat and the hours of fun with friends was free.
“Sam, see this place in the river? It looks shallow, clear, and the sandy floor looks like it would be soft on your feet.”
From the safety of the bank Sam’s rugged, powerfully built dad looked his son in the eye, “Whatever you do, son, don’t swim in that spot. The current will sweep you away and you could drown.”
“Yes, Sir!”
A part of Sam wanted to be a good boy, but often when swimming in the river near the spot, he found himself thinking, Looks pretty safe to me! It’s only a few inches deep! A foot at the most!
One day Sam crossed the line and got into the forbidden spot.
The current grabbed him, threw him down stream, and into some underbrush near the river’s edge. His neck braced itself against the current as the river wrestled to pull him under. His mouth was barely above the water and he was losing the battle.
“Help! Help” It was all he could get out as he went under.
Somehow his father skirted the dangerous current, got to his son, and grabbed those upraised hands crying for salvation. Sam was scared silly, but safe on the bank in his dad’s hug.
We all breathed a sigh of relief. Then Sam added, “The sad thing is that I just read about a young boy from my home town who drowned because of that same deceptive spot.”
Belshazzar was Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson. He should have learned that his grand dad’s pride and defiant idolatry against the true God and it cost him seven years of sanity. Instead, in Daniel 5 we enter a Babylonian party where the sacred goblets from the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem are being used to drown the fear of the Babylonians and to praise their impotent gods on the very night when the Persian army was poised to end their revelry forever.
Belshazzar’s story stands recorded on the pages of sacred scripture. He died because the gods of materialism, power, and pride could not save him. In contrast Daniel kept trusting in the true God.
Sam’s father was there with strong arms to deliver him when he was a boy. Your heavenly Father is here today with strong arms to deliver you from Belshazzar’s tragic fate through the forgiveness and the resurrection power that only Jesus can provide.
The swimming hole was the perfect place to escape the Tennessee heat and the hours of fun with friends was free.
“Sam, see this place in the river? It looks shallow, clear, and the sandy floor looks like it would be soft on your feet.”
From the safety of the bank Sam’s rugged, powerfully built dad looked his son in the eye, “Whatever you do, son, don’t swim in that spot. The current will sweep you away and you could drown.”
“Yes, Sir!”
A part of Sam wanted to be a good boy, but often when swimming in the river near the spot, he found himself thinking, Looks pretty safe to me! It’s only a few inches deep! A foot at the most!
One day Sam crossed the line and got into the forbidden spot.
The current grabbed him, threw him down stream, and into some underbrush near the river’s edge. His neck braced itself against the current as the river wrestled to pull him under. His mouth was barely above the water and he was losing the battle.
“Help! Help” It was all he could get out as he went under.
Somehow his father skirted the dangerous current, got to his son, and grabbed those upraised hands crying for salvation. Sam was scared silly, but safe on the bank in his dad’s hug.
We all breathed a sigh of relief. Then Sam added, “The sad thing is that I just read about a young boy from my home town who drowned because of that same deceptive spot.”
Belshazzar was Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson. He should have learned that his grand dad’s pride and defiant idolatry against the true God and it cost him seven years of sanity. Instead, in Daniel 5 we enter a Babylonian party where the sacred goblets from the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem are being used to drown the fear of the Babylonians and to praise their impotent gods on the very night when the Persian army was poised to end their revelry forever.
Belshazzar’s story stands recorded on the pages of sacred scripture. He died because the gods of materialism, power, and pride could not save him. In contrast Daniel kept trusting in the true God.
Sam’s father was there with strong arms to deliver him when he was a boy. Your heavenly Father is here today with strong arms to deliver you from Belshazzar’s tragic fate through the forgiveness and the resurrection power that only Jesus can provide.
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