Sticking Around: Faithfulness in Babylon, Daniel 1–6

The big ideaFaithfulness means following through: stepping out of the boat even when it doesn’t make sense.

Before we ever opened Daniel, we spent a Sunday in a boat. The question that week shaped everything that came after: are you known for your follow-through?

We had just finished seven weeks on the fruit of the Spirit. We said it like this: what God plants within us grows, and what God grows within us shows. Faithfulness is one of those nine fruits. It’s stick-to-it-iveness: the ability to get knocked down, get back up, and keep going. A faithful person is someone who, in their faith, has resolved to follow through, even when it doesn’t make sense, even when it’s inconvenient, and even when the people they run with aren’t doing it.

Sent into the storm

Matthew 14 picks up on one of the hardest days of Jesus’ life. His friend and relative John the Baptist had just been beheaded. Jesus wanted to slip away and pray, but the crowds followed him. Most of them came for the show. He fed them anyway, five thousand men plus women and children.

John’s gospel tells us what happened next. The crowd decided to take Jesus by force and make him king. I’d guess the disciples were thrilled. After two years of living hand to mouth, they were finally going to get their seats at the table. But it wasn’t time, and Jesus did something none of them expected. He sent them away from the crowd, into a boat, toward a storm.

Read through Scripture and pay attention to the crowd. The crowd is almost always wrong. So ask yourself: is the crowd you run with pointing you toward the Lord or away from him? Sometimes being faithful means leaving your crowd behind.

Nine hours on the water

The trip across that part of the Sea of Galilee was a mile or two. These were fishermen; they’d made it a thousand times. That night they ended up three or four miles out, rowing against the wind for about nine hours. They were ready to die. And Jesus had sent them there.

Does he care? Is time running out? Is he even paying attention? Those are fair questions. A faithful person asks them, because God often takes us to that point. That’s where we grow.

Shortly before dawn, Jesus came to them walking on the lake. They screamed, “It’s a ghost!” He said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

Forget the boat. Count the steps.

Peter said, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.” He didn’t ask so he could post about it later. He wanted to get out of the boat because that’s where Jesus was.

Many of us have built a boat: a worldview that lets us keep one foot in and one foot out. We want to be faithful followers of Christ, and we also want everything else. Jesus says to leave the boat.

Everyone remembers that Peter sank. I’d rather you count how many steps he took first. Let’s say it was twelve. For the first three steps, the skeptics in the boat were sure he was going down. By step nine, maybe they were thinking about climbing out too. Then he saw the wind and started to sink. But those steps were success. The failures were the eleven who never got out of the boat.

And “immediately,” Matthew says, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.

Three kinds of convictions

I believe we all carry three kinds of convictions.

Public convictions are the ones we want other people to think we have. Private convictions are the ones we honestly think we have, until a storm shows us we don’t. Core convictions are who we really are: what we do with our time, our schedule, and our money when life gets hard.

Here’s the formula I left with our church that day: core convictions plus follow-through equals faithful. Faithfulness isn’t reserved for the three percent of super-Christians. It’s one of the nine marks of what Christlike looks like. Do what you know to do, so God can do more.

The big ideaStop telling the story that broke you. Decide to live as if God really is in control.

I meant to preach one Sunday on Daniel in the lions’ den. But every time I looked for the application in chapter 6, I ended up back in chapter 1. The faithfulness we see at the end started somewhere. So we started at the beginning.

Here’s the theme of the entire series, and especially of Daniel 1: it may be time to stop telling the story that broke you and start living the story that will transform you.

The God you serve threw rocks at me

One Wednesday afternoon, Joy and I got caught in a hailstorm in Johnston and pulled over until it passed. When we got home, Baxter, my thirteen-pound dog, would not go outside. He’d stick his head out the dog door, look at the sky, and shake. We finally figured out he’d been hailed on.

I sat him down. “Bax, it happened. Hailstorms come and go.” He looked right at me, and this is what he said: “The God you serve threw rocks at me. I’m going on the carpet. You deal with it.”

Maybe you feel that way. Maybe you feel like God threw rocks at you, and you’re not going any further. Daniel had every reason to feel that way too.

Four boys in Babylon

Around 605 B.C., Babylon was the center of the world, with massive walls, the best schools, and the law that went back to Hammurabi. Its new king, Nebuchadnezzar, was brilliant and ruthless. He had already conquered Judah once. When Judah rebelled, he crushed it and scattered its people.

From the captives he ordered his chief official to pick the best young men: no defects, handsome, quick to learn. They would get three years of training in the language and literature of Babylon, including its astrology and magic, and then serve the king. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were probably thirteen or fourteen years old. Picture a middle schooler. They had been pulled out of their homes, their hopes, and their future. They would likely never see their families again.

When I was working on this series, I had coffee with Ashlie Van Horn, our creative arts director. She told me she had always pictured Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as old men with beards and robes. They did grow old. By the time Daniel faced the lions he was probably in his eighties. But when this story starts, they’re kids.

Then Babylon took their names. Hananiah became Shadrach, Mishael became Meshach, and Azariah became Abednego, each name honoring a Babylonian god. Daniel got the worst one: Belteshazzar, a name tied to Bel, the chief of all Babylon’s gods.

Circle one detail in verse 2: Nebuchadnezzar carried off articles from God’s temple. They come back later, in chapter 5.

Who is really in control?

Three times in this chapter it looks like Nebuchadnezzar is calling the shots, and three times the text tells us who really is. In verse 2, the Lord delivered Jehoiakim into his hand. In verse 9, God caused the official to show favor. In verse 17, God gave the young men knowledge. Even when things looked terrible, God was working all things together for good.

The decision

Then comes verse 8: “But Daniel resolved...”

Daniel had to decide whether he simply believed in God, or whether he really believed God and his promises. He couldn’t put the choice off. The decision had found him.

When life looks bleak, you have to answer the same question Daniel did: how would I live if I really believed God was in control? How would it change the way I spend my time, what I think about, and what I do with what I have?

Weaving a rope

The Hebrew word behind “resolved” pictures making a rope. You take separate strands and weave them together. Daniel took the strands of his past (what his parents taught him, the Scriptures, the stories of faith he’d grown up on) and wove them into something strong enough to hold.

Resolve has nothing to do with emotion. You can be freaking out and still be faithful. Daniel simply decided to live as if God really was in control.

One thing

Later that week I told Baxter to go potty and go get his mom. He did both at once, on the bedroom carpet. So I’m not asking you to do two things or three. Pick one thing that will build faithfulness in you, and do it well.

Grace can inspire you, or it can enable you. When we lean on God’s forgiveness as a reason never to move forward, grace becomes one of the worst things in our spiritual life. When grace inspires and transforms us, it’s the best thing the Holy Spirit can use.

For the kids in your life: the same story in the Kids' Edition, Chapter 1 · Comic, Issue 1: New Place, New Names

The big ideaTrust God with ALL your heart, and do what you can right where you are.

Daniel and his friends found themselves in a foreign world with different rules. I found myself in one too. It’s called Walmart.

We are in Walmart

My son Richard sent his mama a popcorn popper, which was sweet, except we already had one. I offered to return it to Walmart for him. I brought the popper and the return receipt with the QR code to customer service. The young lady behind the counter said she couldn’t take it, because he’d checked a box to mail it back. “Good news, though,” she said. “There’s a FedEx two doors down.”

So I walked it down to the FedEx inside Walmart and asked what they would do with it. “We’ll mail it to Walmart.” I said, “We are in Walmart.”

At that point I could have had an aneurysm. I could have sent strongly worded emails. Or I could accept that I was in a different world with different rules, and just go with it.

That’s the choice Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego faced, with a lot more at stake than a popcorn popper.

With ALL your heart

All week I prayed one verse over our church family:

If I were preaching this verse, the word I’d put in capital letters is ALL. Aren’t you tired of living with a divided heart, one foot in and one foot out, testing the water but never trusting? It’s exhausting, and it’s not the life you were made for. Trust him with all of it, and he will direct your path. The God-directed path is what I want for my wife, my kids, my grandkids, and you.

Curse the darkness, or light a candle?

There’s not one hint of bitterness, resentment, or entitlement in Daniel 1. Think about how much bitterness we carry over things that pale next to what these boys went through. They were dealt a hand, and they decided to play it God’s way.

Daniel didn’t focus on everything he couldn’t do. He didn’t wait for things to line up. This is the day the Lord has made. I am the me the Lord has made. These are the people the Lord has put around me. I’ll rejoice and be glad in it, and I’ll do what I can.

He asked

Notice how Daniel did it. He went to the very official holding him captive and asked permission. The word pictures a respectful, heartfelt request, submissive but still passionate. He wasn’t demanding his rights or insisting they ship in food from home. He said: just vegetables and water. Test us for ten days, then compare us with the others.

I know a Christian business owner who stopped hiring Christians because so many of them demanded that his workplace bend around their convictions. Daniel worked inside the system with respect, and God gave him favor.

The strands our kids see

Somebody had prepared these boys for Babylon. When the world hit them head-on, they had strands to weave a rope with, strands their parents and community had planted. Kids will weave a rope from whatever strands they’ve seen in us. Words are cheap. If we talk faith but live with one foot in the boat, our kids will do one of two things: deconstruct a faith they know isn’t real, or copy it. An authentic faith is the only faith worth sharing. A humble, broken, repentant, honest faith is what prepares a kid for Babylon.

Tell yourself no

Daniel’s resolve started with abstaining, telling himself no. When I was a young youth pastor, my senior pastor’s wife served us sandwiches and then chocolate cake. I dove in. He passed. When I asked him why, he said: “Sometimes you have to tell yourself no in the little things, because the big things are coming.”

So I quit caffeine (and begged Joy not to quit the same week). I challenged our staff to do the same. They gave up too much social media, energy drinks, doom-scrolling, phone games, and texting while driving. What they found was more confidence, more time, and room to think the thoughts they actually wanted to think.

Some of you need to cut out something bigger. We lie to ourselves most about three things: how much we drink, how much we eat, and how much we exercise. If it’s the right goal, for the right reason, with the Lord’s help and whatever help you need from others, he will help you succeed. And three days isn’t quitting. Try three months.

For the kids in your life: the same story in the Kids' Edition, Chapter 2 · Comic, Issue 2: The Lunch Table

The big ideaStep out of the crowd, and step in for the people closest to you.

Before you read another word, settle one thing: this chapter is for you. Not your spouse, not your kid, not the friend you wish had been in church that Sunday.

Who needs the shovel?

Joy and I walked in the door one afternoon, and she called out, “Baxter pooped again.” Our house rule is that whoever finds it cleans it up, so I pretended not to hear. Then she said, “It’s not poop.” It was a baby bunny. Out back stood Daisy, our prim and proper standard poodle, right in the middle of four more, smiling like she’d done something worth doing.

Joy asked if I had a shovel. I said I’d be happy to get her one. She said, “I don’t need a shovel. You need the shovel.”

Don’t sit here thinking somebody else needs the shovel this morning. Let God’s Word land on you. Pick it up and do the work.

Real history, real choices

Daniel’s story isn’t make-believe. Around the same time, Aesop was telling his fables, the Maya were rising, and Phoenician sailors were rounding Africa. Nebuchadnezzar was real and terrifying. As a prince, he once raced an army five hundred miles in fourteen days to claim his father’s throne. Babylon had fifty miles of walls and a hundred bronze gates.

From Judah he took somewhere between a dozen and two hundred promising young men. We know the names of only four. Faithfulness begins with a choice. Choices become patterns, patterns become character, and character fulfills your purpose. Then one day you close your eyes here, open them in heaven, and hear, “Welcome home. You were good and faithful.”

The rope again

“Daniel resolved,” and that word still means weaving a rope. The rope you end up with shows who you really are. Why refuse the king’s food? First, it had been offered to idols. Second, sharing someone’s table meant identifying with them, in this case with the gods of Babylon. Faithfulness is taught, but it’s also caught.

One step out: leave the crowd

Most of the captured boys apparently took the king’s food. Daniel stepped away from that crowd, the guys he grew up with, his people. That was unpopular, probably unwise, and definitely scary.

The crowd is almost always wrong. It shouted “Hosanna” and, within a week, “Crucify him.” In Mark 6, Jesus taught in his hometown synagogue, and the people there said, “Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son?” They took offense. Jesus left, and as far as we know he never went back. A life of faithfulness sets you apart. You serve a different master and spend your time and money differently, and people won’t always understand.

I think we need two kinds of relationships. The first is with people who don’t know Jesus. We love them, befriend them, pray for them, and gently nudge them toward him, without being obnoxious or religious. The second is with people of faithfulness. They aren’t perfect, but they genuinely want to walk with God. If there’s no room for those friends, make room. Joy calls it the friendship Lego: you only have so many holes. The most confusing friends are the ones who say they follow Christ but don’t back it up.

One step in: carry your inner circle

Then Daniel spoke up for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Pastor Brandon joked about what they might have said: Shadrach is still praying about it, Meshach isn’t sure, and Abednego needs to text his mom. Daniel said, “No, we’re doing this.” He did what he could with the people God had put closest to him.

And God showed up, as he always does for people who step out in faith. Your closest circle comes first. If you’re married, that’s your spouse, whether or not they’re doing their part. If kids are at home, it’s them. If your adult kids have wandered, it’s your responsibility and your privilege to stay present and keep building the bridge.

How would you blow it up?

Here’s an exercise I use. Think about how you could wreck a relationship, then do the opposite on purpose. With Joy, I’d ruin things by asking her to get to the point and skip the fluff. So I tell myself, my time is not more important, and I listen until she’s done. With my grown sons, I’d ruin things with too much advice. So before every call I remind myself: listen, encourage, and offer help if they want it.

You can’t cause an outcome, but you can create an environment for God to bless.

For the kids in your life: the same story in the Kids' Edition, Chapter 2 · Comic, Issue 2: The Lunch Table

The big ideaGod’s will starts where you are: look for his hand, make a plan, and pray.

On the road of life, things run out in front of you. You swerve, and you don’t know how long to swerve or when to swerve back. The time to know God’s voice is before the dog hits the road.

Good reflexes

Joy and I drove home from Arkansas after her dad’s spine surgery (he’s doing fine). I like the scenic route, so we cut through the Ozarks, where the brush grows right up to the pavement. A big husky came flying out of the weeds with almost no time to react. I swerved as far as I could, swerved back, and heard his nose tap the side of the truck. In the mirror he was trotting along, happy as could be, with no idea how close he’d come.

Joy said, “Sweetheart, your reflexes are really good.” That doesn’t happen often while I’m driving.

Many of us wait until something runs out in front of us to ask, “All right, God, what’s your plan?” You don’t want to start from scratch in a crisis. That’s why we’re building a life of faithfulness now.

Three stages of God’s will

I believe God has a specific will for your life. He created you on purpose and for a purpose. There are three ways to think about his will, and they come in order. You can’t skip to the third.

1. God’s providential will. This is what God decides, and it’s above our pay grade: when to send the flood, or when to send Jesus. Here we decide whether we simply believe in God or actually believe him, trusting that even what doesn’t make sense to us has a point.

2. God’s moral will. These are the commands he’s already given us, the thou shalts and thou shalt nots. Jesus talks so much about forgiveness that we know it’s part of God’s will for us. If you’re holding a grudge, holding back your giving, or refusing to make peace when you know you should, you’re out of step. You won’t hear his personal will while you’re ignoring what he’s already said. God doesn’t wait for perfection, but he does want a body in motion.

3. God’s personal will. This is his plan that’s unique to you. It starts where you are right now, with the people closest to you.

Abram’s restlessness, Daniel’s ditch

In Genesis 12, God called Abram from Ur, not far from where Babylon would rise. Abram was seventy-five, with a family, a career, a savings account, and a retirement plan. He also had a restlessness in his soul he couldn’t name. God said, “Go,” and Abram went. Maybe nothing is wrong in your life, yet something is stirring. That’s an exciting place to be.

Daniel’s life was the opposite. Something ran in front of his truck that he didn’t cause, and he ended up in the ditch. Read only verses 1 to 14 and it looks like tragedy. God’s will reads a lot like Hebrew, which reads right to left: it’s much easier to see looking back.

I dare you to find one hint of bitterness in Daniel.

“God gave”

Circle “God gave.” He gave these boys mastery of subjects they never wanted to learn, taught by people who couldn’t care less about God, because God had a plan.

Babylon’s dream experts used a kind of code book. Dream about a ghost carrying salt, and it means somebody’s going to die. Dream about barley in a field, and it means prosperity. If your dream wasn’t in the book, they added it. Daniel didn’t need the book. He had the Spirit of God.

At their final exam, the king found them ten times better than all his magicians. God made them thrive right where they were: not where they wanted to be, not where they demanded to be, and not where they felt entitled to be. Some of us wait, bitter, for God to move us somewhere better, and we miss the point.

How to find God’s personal will

Look for his providence. God uses ordinary things to bring about supernatural results: a person you don’t know today and will meet tomorrow, or a door that isn’t there yet.

Make a plan. Daniel couldn’t do everything, but he could do something, so he made a plan. You can’t get in shape without one, and you won’t get a better marriage or better parenting without one either. If you don’t have a plan, it isn’t really important to you. Any plan is better than the one you don’t have.

Pray powerfully. I’m less concerned about how long I pray than about how much time goes by between my prayers. At 9:00 every morning my phone reminds me: This is the day the Lord has made.

For the kids in your life: the same story in the Kids' Edition, Chapter 3 · Comic, Issue 3: Your Closest Friends

The big ideaWhile you are waiting, God is working.

Daniel 2 is about a king’s nightmare, but this chapter is about waiting. You may be waiting right now. If not, you have been, and you will be again.

My wife, the secret agent

One Friday night I dreamed Joy had been a secret agent our entire thirty-six-year marriage, working for the British government. She’s from Arkansas. She wouldn’t tell me her secrets, because she’d “sworn an oath.” I said, “You can’t possibly take an oath to the British seriously.” I woke up grouchy. (We had just finished a British spy show.) I never told her about the dream, because she would have given me a look that made me wonder.

Dreams and visions

There are twenty-one dreams recorded in Scripture, and ten of them are in Genesis. Two belong to Joseph. Only one woman’s dream is recorded: Pilate’s wife, during Jesus’ trial. God spoke through dreams mostly before the Holy Spirit came to live in believers at Pentecost. Visions continue in the New Testament. A true vision from God almost always puts you in a place of sacrificial service, not at the center of the story.

Start where you are

By Daniel 2 the four had finished, or nearly finished, Babylon’s university. Instead of growing bitter, they decided to be faithful right where they were. So accept where you are. If life is comfortable, don’t cling to that comfort, because God is always up to something next. If you’re somewhere you never wanted to be, let go of the bitterness.

A word about the dark arts

These boys had to sit through classes in magic, astrology, and dream reading, and sort truth from error. The occult is real. Fortune-telling, astrology, mediums, and Ouija boards all open doors in your mind that are hard to close. How far away should you stay? All the way. It’s impossible to protect our kids from the world, but we can prepare them, because Babylon is coming.

The impossible demand

Nebuchadnezzar remembered his dream. But he knew his experts were reading from a code book, so he changed the rules: tell me the dream and what it means, or I’ll have you cut into pieces. They answered that no one on earth could do that, only the gods, “and they do not live among humans.” Furious, the king ordered every wise man in Babylon executed. Daniel and his friends were on that list.

Notice how Daniel responded. He spoke to Arioch, the commander, “with wisdom and tact” (2:14). I long for Christians to be articulate voices in the marketplace of ideas, with wisdom and tact rather than anger and hatred. Daniel’s life was on the line, and he still didn’t fight the Lord’s battles with the devil’s ways.

Then Daniel asked the king for time. He put himself in a place of waiting.

“I waited, and I waited”

Psalm 40:1 says, “I waited patiently for the LORD.” The Hebrew literally says something like, I waited, I waited for the Lord. It doesn’t have to mean calmly; it could have been frantic. David learned to wait faithfully because he learned that God always hears.

Four D’s: why waiting is wise

Danger. Waiting often reveals dangers we can’t see. Good decisions are rarely made in a hurry, and we rush the bad ones so nobody can talk us out of them.

Developing circumstances. You aren’t the star of the show; we’re all supporting actors. Your wait may be because God is blessing someone else. Friends of ours were waiting for their house to sell. Maybe another family’s circumstances aren’t lined up yet. The hard part is that you’re the one paying the mortgage, whether financial or emotional.

Determining motives. Waiting lets you see why you want what you want.

Divine power. Sometimes God gives you the power to wait before he gives you the power to move, along with a peace that passes understanding. “Follow your heart” is terrible advice, because the heart is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9).

Three A’s: what to watch for while you wait

Anger: when God doesn’t follow the job description I wrote for him. Apathy: when I’ve prayed the same prayer so long I’m just done. Anxiety: when I’m not controlling the billions of details, and it makes me uneasy. Guard against all three.

For the kids in your life: the same story in the Kids' Edition, Chapter 4 · Comic, Issue 4: Tie the Knot

The big ideaTie a knot with faithful friends, and build a pattern of prayer.

By now these young men, probably seventeen or eighteen, had faced death three times: when they were kidnapped, when they refused the king’s food, and now under the king’s decree. Each time they had to decide whether God was more powerful than the threat. Each time they decided he was.

Wisdom and tact, both

Daniel spoke to the king’s commander “with wisdom and tact.” Wisdom without tact makes you irrelevant, even if you’re right. A person who is all truth and no grace does more harm to the cause of Christ than ten people who keep quiet. All grace and no truth is no good either. You need both.

He told his friends

After asking the king for time, Daniel went home and explained everything to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. He had spoken for them once before, in chapter 1. Soon they would have to stand without him.

On the way back from a trip, Joy and I stopped at a bakery in Pella. I wanted to buy a Dutch letter F for a new baby in our church family. Joy said, “They only sell S’s.” Then why call them Dutch letters? Just say Dutch S! Say what you mean. (We bought five. I won’t say who ate what.) Sometimes Scripture is plain, and sometimes it’s worth looking behind the words.

“Friends” is one of those words. The word picture I see in it is tying a knot. Remember “resolved,” weaving a rope? When two people who have each woven a rope of faithfulness decide to walk together, they tie a knot. Usually it’s a small group of people who want what God wants for their lives, and for yours, more than they want their own way.

What a knot looks like

Remember the fruit of the Spirit. Patience in a friendship is choosing to go at someone else’s pace, as long as they’re heading toward faithfulness. Gentleness is offering your strength where they’re weak. Humility is receiving their strength when you’re the weak one. Leadership means being half a step ahead, not five or six.

Tying the knot makes us think of marriage, and it fits. A knot can free you or strangle you. I married Joy when I was twenty, and I shouldn’t have been trusted with big decisions at twenty, but God was gracious. If you don’t have a friend like that, pray for one, find one, and be one.

That half-step is what I aim for as a pastor too. I want the slowest of us included, the fastest of us included, and all of us growing together.

He urged them to pray

Daniel asked his friends to plead for mercy. They had plenty of motivation, since they were going to die too. But Daniel also knew they would soon need a prayer life of their own.

King David was busy, with sheep, then Saul, then a kingdom. Even so, he wrote, “In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly” (Psalm 5:3). Peter adds: humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time (circle that). Cast all your anxiety on him. “Cast” pictures throwing a blanket over a donkey’s back and watching it walk away.

My pattern of prayer

My prayers can turn into worrying out loud. So I set four recurring reminders on my phone, Monday through Friday, with a different tone from my other alarms:

• 9:00 — my kids, daughters-in-law, and grandkids, by name. My sons are about an hour into their workday by then.
• 12:00 — our church family.
• 3:00 — the things Joy and I are seeking God about together.
• 6:00 — Joy, which softens my heart before our evening.

On Saturdays there’s no alarm. I look back at what God did that week. It has freed me. When worry creeps in, I can say, “I prayed about that. He’s got it. I’ll pray again tomorrow.” I’ve watched him answer prayers I didn’t have the faith to expect. Mine isn’t the best plan. But if you don’t have one, mine is better than yours.

Daniel’s “Saturday”

God revealed the mystery to Daniel in a vision. Before he ran to the king, he stopped and gave thanks.

He thanked God for four things, and they’re worth being thankful for every day:

1. God controls everything. He works the good and the bad together for good.
2. God knows everything. He is never surprised.
3. God reveals what we need to know, when we need to know it, and not before (James 1:5–6).
4. God has a plan, and he really does bless faithfulness.

Faithfulness doesn’t begin after the hard season, the promotion, or the busy stretch. It begins right now, with the people you’ll see this afternoon.

For the kids in your life: the same story in the Kids' Edition, Chapter 4 · Comic, Issue 4: Tie the Knot

The big ideaGod can. He may. And even if he does not, I will not bow.

Lives of faith are never built overnight. The people we call spiritual giants got there one slow step and one choice at a time. These four had now faced death three times, and little things had become big things.

Quick recap of where we’ve been. Week one: add one thing. Week two: remove one thing. Week three: invest in your inner circle. Week four: discover God’s will for your life.

What if death isn’t the worst thing?

I grew up hearing heaven described in a way that made me not want to go. Streets of gold? I’d take a picture, but I don’t care about gold streets. Pearly gates? I’ve never even bought my wife pearls. Singing forever? I’m not a musician. Will there be AC/DC?

God says, “I’ve prepared a place. Trust me,” and leaves an ellipsis. Then he drops Easter eggs throughout Scripture: no sin, no pain, no sorrow, a new earth, believers reunited, and Jesus himself. Until we really believe what’s waiting is better than what we have, we’ll never have a fearless faith.

Paul says, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2). C. S. Lewis observed that if we find a desire nothing in this world can satisfy, maybe we were made for another world. Death was Satan’s weapon, and Jesus turned it into an entrance.

The statue in the dream

Daniel told the king his dream. There was an enormous statue: a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay. A rock cut out, but not by human hands, struck its feet. The whole thing shattered into dust, the wind blew it away, and the rock became a mountain that filled the earth.

“You, Your Majesty, are that head of gold.” Kingdoms would follow, many believe Medo-Persia, then Greece, then Rome. People debate the details. History has seen roughly twenty-seven great empires, and every one of them shares something: they’re gone.

I’m not telling you not to care, not to vote, or not to love your country. I’m saying that if your faith is in your country, it’s in the wrong place. That’s why the news, the economy, and gas prices rock us so badly. The rock in the dream is God’s kingdom, and we know it as Jesus and the gospel, which fill the earth.

The king seems to have heard only the first part: I’m the gold! He promoted Daniel, and Daniel remembered his friends. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego got important jobs in the province.

Fifteen years later

Chapter 3 picks up as if no time has passed. But an ancient Greek translation says this happened in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. If that’s right, the “boys” were now in their thirties, with fifteen years of small faithful choices behind them.

The king built a 90-foot image of gold on the plain of Dura, probably gold over a wooden frame. Had he forgotten the dream? When the music played, everyone had to bow, or be thrown into a blazing furnace. And everyone bowed except three. Daniel was likely away on the king’s business. Their mentor was gone, and they stood alone.

“Maybe you didn’t get the memo”

Some jealous officials told on them. I think the king liked these three, so he gave them another chance. A pragmatic person would weigh the odds: God forgives, right? Bow now, ask forgiveness later, and stay alive. But these men had walked through small trials, like ten days of vegetables, and seen God come through. So they answered:

Can he? Will he? Even if not.

Can he? “My God can.” He can heal, restore families, and give direction, and he can suspend the laws of nature to carry out his plan. It’s easy to believe he can for somebody else and wonder if he can for you.

Will he? That’s the real elephant in the room.

But even if he does not. This is where faith and God’s providence meet a broken spirit that’s run out of answers. Even if my prayer isn’t answered, even if the thing I fear most happens, I still believe God is in control. I still believe he knows everything, that his plan is better than mine, and that my life is a small part of it.

If you’re waiting for God to hold up his end before you start following him, you’ll never live in the rhythm of the Holy Spirit. The king got mad, then got madder, and ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual.

To be continued.

For the kids in your life: the same story in the Kids' Edition, Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 · Comic, Issue 5: Don't Forget Your Friends · Comic, Issue 6: Stand Together

The big ideaSometimes faithfulness leads into the fire, and Jesus meets you there.

Last week ended with three men tied up at the mouth of a furnace. Before we find out what happened, let’s settle who we serve.

Following the snacks

Our dogs love Costco rotisserie chicken night. One evening Joy was pulling the chicken apart in the kitchen while I was eating in the other room. The dogs couldn’t decide where the snacks would come from. They’d sit and stare at her, hear me eating, run and stare at me, then run back. They were so stressed out going back and forth that I think they missed snacks they would have gotten if they had just picked a spot and stayed there.

We do the same thing. We run between two worlds and two masters, living by faith some days and faithlessly on others. Choose who you are. Resolve. Tie the knot with friends who’ve chosen the same. When the snacks come, enjoy them. When they don’t, it doesn’t mean you jump ship to a different master.

Strongholds

A stronghold, or an idol, is anything that sets itself up against what God wants and against who he wants you to be. It could be a fear, a goal, a person, a habit, a hobby, or a preoccupation. We’d never bow to a 90-foot statue, yet we bow to all kinds of things all week long.

Remember the “God is my co-pilot” bumper sticker from the seventies? It sounds nice, but there’s only one driver’s seat. A faithful life is lived with God as the pilot. I’m the co-pilot, the flight attendant, or a passenger.

Three kinds of will, one furnace

Back in Chapter 4 we looked at three stages of God’s will. This week we used a different set of three to watch how God works inside one story.

Providential, God’s no-matter-what will: a king took power, and nobody could change that. Circumstantial, God’s behind-the-scenes will: one day there was no statue, and the next day there was a 90-foot one. In college Joy had to train a rat in a maze. She’d slide plastic pieces in to limit its choices, but the rat could always go forward, stop, or turn back. Personal: in this circumstance, what does God want me to do today?

For these three men, all three kinds of will led to one place: the furnace. We like a Pollyanna God, where if we obey, everything works out our way. Sometimes faithfulness leads you straight into the fire.

Stand without making a spectacle

The government commanded something God forbade (“You shall have no other gods before me”), so they didn’t do it. But they didn’t gather a crowd or make a scene. They answered the king with respect, wisdom, and tact. Their testimony was seen more than their protest. God gave them a platform they never demanded.

Four men in the fire

The fire was so hot it killed the soldiers who threw them in. Then the king leaped to his feet: “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?” (How many people do you have to throw in a furnace before you lose count?)

I believe the fourth man was Jesus himself, appearing before his birth in Bethlehem. When they came out, not a hair was singed, their robes weren’t scorched, and they didn’t even smell like smoke. The only things that burned were the ropes that bound them. The king protected their right to worship and promoted them, a God promotion and not a self-promotion, so that everyone could see how real their God was.

Die for him, or live for him?

People say, “I hope I’d be willing to die for Jesus.” I hope so too. The question I care more about is this: am I willing to die to myself today and live for Jesus? One heroic moment might be easier than putting down my idols every single day. I’d protect Joy with my life, but will I live for her every day? I’d die for my kids, but will I parent them, say no, and live a faith in front of them they won’t have to deconstruct?

Years ago a man told one of our pastors he thought God was calling him to ministry. The pastor asked: Do you worship regularly? “When it’s convenient.” Do you give? “Money’s tight.” Do you serve? “I’m busy.” We have no business dreaming about the furnace while we skip the basics.

Stephen’s furnace

Not every faithful person walks out of the fire. In Acts 7, Stephen preached boldly and was stoned for it. As he died he looked up and saw Jesus standing at God’s right hand. He forgave his killers and gave up his spirit. He lived by the power of the Holy Spirit, so he could die by it too.

Sometimes God delivers us from the furnace. Sometimes he doesn’t deliver the way we want. But if we really believe in heaven, that is deliverance too, and maybe the best kind.

For the kids in your life: the same story in the Kids' Edition, Chapter 7 · Comic, Issue 7: The Fourth Man in the Fire

The big ideaSuccess is finishing well and passing faith to the people behind you.

This chapter isn’t really about Daniel or his friends. It’s about a king God humbled, a king God gave a second chance, and a family that never learned what he learned. Underneath it is one question: how do you define success?

Aching back, full heart

It was Father’s Day. My oldest, Richard, had just bought a little 20-foot bunkhouse camper for his young family. I warned him the dinette that folds down into a bed would wreck his back. The next morning he called: “Dad, my back is killing me.” I said, “I told you about that dinette.” He said, “No, the baby ended up in bed with his sister, so I slept all night on the bottom kids’ shelf.”

That’s a lot of what being a dad is: setting aside your own comfort so your kids have a good experience. You wake up with an aching back and a full heart. Carry that into the rest of life. Set aside your own preferences so the people you influence have a good experience of faith.

“Are you for real?”

When I moved to Arkansas to plant a church, a man named Glenn came alongside me. He was short, round, and red-faced, a truck driver with a flatlander accent I could barely understand. He and a group of retired men built our church while I mostly fetched lunch.

Glenn was in his seventies and had failed at most of what mattered. He’d been through two marriages, and his adult kids wouldn’t speak to him. He told me, “My passion in life is to share my failure, so no young man coming behind me makes the same mistakes.” One day he asked me to coffee, though he didn’t drink coffee, and burst into tears. “Are you for real? So many men don’t finish well. Isn’t there anybody who will finish well?”

You don’t know how you’ll finish until you’re done. But as long as you’re still here, you still have a chance to finish well. I watched Glenn do it.

The tree that reached heaven

Nebuchadnezzar was wildly successful. Archaeologists still dig up bricks stamped with his name. He was also ruthless and self-centered, and at this point I’d call him a failure. Remarkably, Daniel 4 is told largely in his own words, and it’s the story of his failure and his redemption.

He dreamed of a tree that touched the sky, giving food and shelter to the whole earth. A messenger from heaven called out: cut it down, but leave the stump, bound with iron and bronze, and let him live like an animal until seven times pass. The other interpreters wouldn’t touch it. Daniel reluctantly told him the truth: “Your Majesty, you are that tree!”

A year went by. He had been impressed by God at the furnace, but he hadn’t been changed. One night, walking on his palace roof, he said:

That very hour it happened. He was driven out to live like an ox, his hair grew like eagle feathers, and his nails like claws. For seven seasons, likely seven years, he lived that way. Then he lifted his eyes to heaven, his sanity returned, and he praised the Most High: “those who walk in pride he is able to humble” (4:37). Sometimes God gives us the gift of rock bottom, the place where we finally look up.

I believe Nebuchadnezzar died a believer. Remember Jesus’ parable of the vineyard workers: the one hired at the last hour gets the same reward. The greater reward belongs to those who got to walk with God their whole lives instead of wasting them.

But his family didn’t finish well

Nebuchadnezzar reigned forty-three years, which puts Daniel and his friends somewhere in their late fifties by then. His son took the throne and was evil. A few more kings came and went, and then Belshazzar ruled, a descendant who called Nebuchadnezzar “father” the way people then honored an ancestor. Whatever Nebuchadnezzar learned late in life, he didn’t pass on. His late faith didn’t cost him heaven, but the wasted years before it cost the people coming behind him. That’s tragic, and it’s preventable.

The writing on the wall

Belshazzar threw a feast for a thousand nobles and called for the gold and silver goblets Nebuchadnezzar had taken from God’s temple, the ones I asked you to circle back in chapter 1. They drank from them and praised their idols. Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster wall. The king turned pale, and his knees knocked. (If a hand writing on the wall is just a normal Friday for you, push the glass away.)

The queen remembered Daniel, and they pulled him out of retirement. My paraphrase of the message: Your days are numbered. You’ve been weighed and found wanting. It’s about to happen. Behind the scenes, the Medes and Persians were outside the walls, and they diverted the Euphrates to march in through the riverbed. That very night Belshazzar was killed. He had known the story of his grandfather and never humbled himself.

Quantity, then quality

When your kids are young, you’re responsible for the quantity of your words. When they’re grown, you’re responsible for their quality, because you get fewer of them. Faith isn’t perfection. Glenn shared his worst moments, and God used them. Regret can be a powerful motivator. What do you want for the people closest to you?

For the kids in your life: the same story in the Kids' Edition, Chapter 8 · Comic, Issue 8: Just As He Had Done Before

The big ideaWhen the stakes go up, keep doing what you’ve always done.

This is the story everybody waited for. But listen to it as if it’s the first time. God’s Word never changes, but our lives change all the time, and the timeless Word lands differently on a changing life.

God, help me

Joy got new contacts in the mail: two boxes, two prescriptions, and no label saying which eye was which. She called her optometrist while I listened on speaker in the car. She read the first prescription, and the lady said, “That’s your right eye.” That should have settled it. Two eyes, two boxes. Then I watched Joy pick up the second box, and I prayed, “God, help me. God, help me.” I wouldn’t have been able to keep my mouth shut. At the last second they both realized it and giggled.

Some “God, help me” prayers are small, and some are huge. Either way, it’s the right prayer for every situation. By Daniel 6, that kind of prayer had become Daniel’s habit.

The old fly

There always seem to be two flies in our house. Baxter spots them, and I hunt them with a salt-shooting bug gun. Young flies are frantic and never land. Old flies land right in front of you, wait until you’re in range, and hop away. Missed me.

By chapter 6, Daniel was an old fly. He wasn’t the teenager in the children’s Bible pictures. He was probably in his mid-eighties, and he had served under one king, regime, or administration after another for about sixty years. He had seen kings come and go, and he had watched God bless faithfulness again and again. He wasn’t frantic anymore.

The trap

King Darius (“Darius” may be a title, something like “holder of the scepter”) set three administrators over 120 satraps. Daniel was one of the three, and the king planned to put him over the whole kingdom. His rivals searched six decades of his life and found nothing. No corruption, no negligence. So they went after his God.

They flattered the king into signing a decree: for thirty days, anyone who prayed to any god or person except the king would be thrown to the lions. Under the law of the Medes and Persians, a decree could not be revoked.

Watch this story from three camera angles. God’s angle: providentially, he had put Darius on the throne. Circumstantially, he allowed a decree made behind Daniel’s back. Daniel’s angle: personally, he had to decide how to play the hand he was dealt. Then there’s Darius’s angle, and we’ll come back to that.

Just as he had done before

The stakes went up, but his pattern didn’t change. Look at what he did:

1. He went to his upper room. He didn’t post about it or gather a think tank. He met with God privately.
2. He faced Jerusalem, the place of sacrifice. For us that points to Jesus. We pray through the Spirit, in Jesus’ name, to the Father.
3. He knelt, a sign of humility and focus. Do something that sets your prayer time apart.
4. He gave thanks, even with his life on the line. God is in control, God knows everything, and I have a part to play.
5. He asked for help. God, help me be faithful, whatever today brings.

My 9-12-3-6 phone alarms are still going off. At dinner with friends recently, my 6:00 reminder buzzed. I said, “Sorry, that’s my reminder to pray. Which way is Jerusalem?” They laughed. They hadn’t read Daniel 6 yet.

Daniel disobeyed the king’s order because it opposed his God’s command. But he accepted the consequences, and he did it with respect. He was faithful without trying to hurt anyone who was unfaithful.

Trial by the gods

Darius was “greatly distressed” and worked until sundown to save Daniel. He had been tricked. In that culture, lions symbolized royalty and the power of the gods. If you were thrown in and survived, the gods had spoken: the charges were false, and even an unchangeable decree could be set aside.

As they sealed the stone, the king said, “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!” Continually. Darius didn’t believe in Daniel’s God yet, but he believed in Daniel’s faith. People rarely get argued into heaven. They watch how you live through hard times and good times.

The king spent the night without food, without entertainment, and without sleep. At dawn he ran to the den: “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?”

Daniel could have spiked the football. Instead he said, “May the king live forever! My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions.” (He drops that angel and moves right along. I want to know how! Did the angel say “bad kitty”? Someday I’ll ask.)

Darius in the lions’ den

I think this story was really about Darius. God used Daniel’s faithfulness to move the pieces.

The king wrote to every nation: “I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and he endures forever” (6:26). As I understand the history, the hearts of the Persian kings softened toward the Jewish people. They were allowed and even helped to go home and rebuild. A generation of exile turned around through a pagan king’s decree, because a boy taken at thirteen had resolved to be faithful.

It starts now

Do you want to change your marriage? Live for Jesus. Your family, your workplace, your community, your state, your world? Live for Jesus. Who does it start with? Me. Where does it start? Right here. When? Right now.

For the kids in your life: the same story in the Kids' Edition, Chapter 8 · Comic, Issue 8: Just As He Had Done Before