Recap 4/16/08

Today we revisited the story of Daniel in the lion's den, wonderfully facilitated by our own Daniel, thanks Daniel!

Daniel pointed out that there were three main people in this story- King Darius, the satraps, and Daniel.

The basic (really basic) story goes like this: Daniel was a really intelligent, moral person that was part of the inner circle of governors or "satraps." King Darius even wanted to make him the leader of all the lead governors. This pretty much made the other satraps jealous, and they wanted to find a way to get rid of Daniel. So they watched him closely for any mistakes. But they could find nothing. Pretty amazing.

So they found a way to trick king Darius into getting rid of Daniel for them. They convinced the king to make an irrevocable law that anyone worshiping any god other than King Darius will be put to death. Daniel had such strong faith that he still worshiped God, without hiding it. They caught him and sent him into the lion's den (how did they get the lions in there anyway?).

King Darius seems like an easily manipulated kind of guy, and also prideful and arrogant. He was easily convinced that there should be a law to make people worship him. But then he seems to know something about the power of God also. He tells Daniel that he hopes his God will save him when he seals him into the den.

And God does. And then the king puts the conspiring satraps and all their wives and children in there instead. They were ripped to shreds! yikes!

The satraps seem like jealous, power-hungry men that wanted their own glory over what is right. But we see that in the end, their jealous schemes that were supposed to help them get ahead in the world ended up backfiring. It lead to the suffering and death of their loved ones as well. Same thing in our lives- jealousy often leads to our own suffering. Even if we scheme to get something from someone that we want, it often doesn't ease that burning feeling that jealousy creates in our hearts.

Looking at Daniel, we thought about what it means to be a Christian in the workplace. Daniel lived in religious excellence not for selfish gain, but because of his faith. He openly showed his loyalty to God, and stayed reliant on God even in his success. Would we openly go against the law of the workplace to show our faith in God? And would we remain loyal to God even after we gained success in the workplace?

We looked at Daniel's prayer life. He prayed three times every day. Maybe this is how he stayed focused on God despite his personal success. Today, we talk about the spiritual disciplines, prayer being one, and that sometimes they turn into just a habit that doesn't mean anything. I wonder if Daniel ever prayed just out of habit, or was he pure in his worship and love of God? There's a note in the story that God judged Daniel while he was in the den and found him pure. Maybe this shows his pureness of heart through prayer.

One last idea that we touched on was the idea that Daniel faced a dilemma- give in to satan and worship King Darius, or follow God and be put to the lions. Would we be willing to face the lions in order to defy satan? What are the lions in our life-- things that we fear so much that we give in to the easy temptations of satan... What things can we do to stay focused on God in those temptations?