Sleeping with the Lions

“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?