The Book of Daniel: Resilient Faith
Navigating through life can often seem difficult. We find ourselves experiencing a sudden change of circumstances putting us in situations we never expected. We face new challenges in our jobs. Relationships can be tricky at times. Perhaps we even find ourselves surrounded by a culture that seems so foreign to our own values.
The experiences of a young man called Daniel who lived a little over 2,500 years ago has much to help us dig deep foundations to help us weather the storms of life. He was captured and abducted from his home around the age of 15 or 16 and taken hundreds of miles to be re-educated in an imposing foreign city – strange language, food and customs. The aim of his captors was to reshape his identity in their own image and yet Daniel – and his friends, taken with him – held firmly to his relationship with God through all of this. He remembered who he really was and where his loyalties really lay. His choices, small at first, helped him to build a resilient faith. He prioritised his relationship with God, ensured that prayer was a central feature of his life and sought to be obedient to God’s instruction. Learning from Daniel, we can ask ourselves what steps we can take to remember that our true identity is to be found in Jesus and in our relationship with him. How do we make choices and build habits that remind us of this daily? How do we encourage one another as Daniel and his friends encouraged each other?
Yet it was not all plain sailing. Daniel was being trained for service in the royal court of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the most powerful world ruler at that time. Nebuchadnezzar was a man full of pride and arrogance, an absolute ruler holding the power of life and death over the people he governed and conquered. His power was indeed great and his many achievements were spectacular but he was eventually to learn that God was far more powerful and magnificent than he. Throughout the book of Daniel we discover that God is working in the background, ultimately directing the course of human history. Through a series of dreams and visions Nebuchadnezzar learns that despite apparent appearances, God is the one who can raise up or bring down human empires. A subsequent vision given to Daniel uses images of beasts to represent human empires – the clear message being that even rulers and empires that begin benevolently degenerate into an oppressive beastliness. Yet the message is also clear in declaring that the cycle isn’t endless – we are not without hope. One day God will break the cycle and establish his own kingdom on the earth – a kingdom of righteousness and true justice that will reign for all eternity.
With its many supernatural events, bizarre and fantastical visions and dreams and minutely detailed predictive prophecies the book of Daniel has a reputation for being a difficult and challenging book – especially the second half of it. Yet, once we begin to grasp this central message these things begin to come into focus. From our own vantage point, looking back to the time of Daniel, the detail allows us to map some parts of the prophecy onto events that have already been fulfilled in history. Some of it refers to the end of this present age and the return of Jesus. Of such things our understanding will only be in our part until the time it is finally fulfilled but we are to understand what we and to remain alert, watching and waiting so that we will not be surprised if or when the time does come.
So, as we journey together through the book of Daniel let’s keep these main ideas in focus – where do we find our true identity and how do we hold on to it, do our daily decisions draw us into God’s plans and purposes or away from them, remember that God is ultimately in control even if we can’t always see that and never lose hope because one day Jesus will return and establish God’s righteous order for all eternity. The kingdom of God is at hand – one day it will be present in all its fullness – and until that time Jesus invites us to partner with him in helping to make his kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
