Monday, April 28, 2008

True Life Series Comes to an End

True Life: Story of Daniel
To check out this weeks True Life Podcast click here. This week's True Life Testimony was done by Michael Garcia. Michael has seen more in his 17 years than most people see in an entire lifetime, including losing his mom unexpectedly. Michael's faith has grown leaps and bounds through the trials and hardships that God has brought his through. Check out his video testimony below.


Thoughts about Daniel and the Lion's Den
As I began to study Daniel 6 God showed me some things that I had never seen before.

One of the coolest things that I discovered as I began to study was Daniel's age when he was thrown into the Lion's Den. Daniel was 83 years old when Darius was manipulated into sealing him into the Lion's Den. This is interesting because I had always thought of Daniel as being a relatively young man when he got thrown to the lions. The reality is that Daniel was ready to face whatever came his way even at 83 years of age.

I love how upon hearing Darius's vain decree that no one be allowed to worship any God or man other than he himself for 30 days, he simply goes right home and does what he was in the habit of doing every day any way, he prays. Dan 6:10, "Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he 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." Some have mis-interpreted Daniel praying on the second floor with the "windows open" to mean that he went and made it obvious that he was opposing Darius's decree. In my opinion, this is way off base. Daniel went upstairs to pray, it's not like people were in the apartments accross the street from his palace peeping in his window each day as he prayed. Upstairs would have been a quiet and undisruptive place to carry out prayer. He opened the windows towards Jerusalem because of the sentimental value that it held to him and his faith. He was probably still praying that God would restore Jerusalem somehow during his lifetime. He was after all a form of a savior for the remnant of Israel while in exile.

Some have taken Daniel's defiance to the decree to validate their desire to stand and fight for their rights with respect to prayer in school or saying 'merry Christmas' instead of 'happy holidays.' Don't get me wrong, I'm not making a statement about whether or not it's right for the government to legislate prayer in schools or matters of religion at all, but I am saying that it is ironic to see people get so fired up about something that they have no commitment to otherwise.

Daniel didn't get fired up about prayer because of the decree, he was so fired up about it that he made a habit of doing it at the same time everyday, three times a day, and in the same location. The decree didn't change a thing for Daniel, he wasn't willing, even though he had to know that it meant certain death for him, to waiver from his conviction of prayer.It's important to be people of great conviction without question, but it's just silly to get angry about the restrictions on prayer in public schools if we aren't committed to praying every day that God would work in our communities and our schools.

I'm convicted as ever after this study in Daniel because I know that I have a long way to go when it comes to living a life that is marked with prayer each day. I have to wonder that if we, those of us who follow Christ, prayed everyday, even just once (as compared to 3 times), that God would work miracles in our communities and our schools that we would see miracles like we can hardly imagine. All the lawyers in the world would not have been able to save Daniel from those lions, but our God closed their mouths and saved Daniel's life and he will do the same for us.

Are you ready for the Lion's Den? Find your knees and start listening and talking to God and he will do the rest!

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