The ultimate prayer rhythm

Daniel lived a pretty crazy life.  When he was a teenager, King Nebuchadnezzar sacked the nation of Judah, and Daniel was abducted from his home by the conquering Babylonians.  After being marched east across the Asian continent for months, he and the other captives arrived in the nation’s capital, Babylon.  Then he and his friends were subjected to a 3-year re-education program for the best and brightest young men taken from foreign countries. 

He and his friends made waves in the Babylonian culture and government many times – and each event was caused by them sticking to their trust in the God of Israel instead of following the gods of Babylon or the various edicts of the Babylonian government.  Their first test came during the re-education program, when they opted out of the prohibited diet provided from the royal food and drink.  Daniel interpreted dreams that no one in the king’s realm would even attempt to decipher.  Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (aka Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) defied the king’s orders to worship a golden statue representing the greatness of Babylon.  For their disobedience, they were thrown into a fiery furnace.  After they were rescued by God, you’d think King Nebuchadnezzar would understand that he wasn’t the center of the universe, but no…he had another lesson to learn.  Daniel saw the king go insane, act like a wild animal, and then, some time later, regain his senses after acknowledging God for who He is.

Daniel had a front row seat for all these events as well as many others.  In total, Daniel lived and served under six different rulers!  But what of the most famous story of Daniel’s life…when he was tossed into a lions’ den?  That event happened after the Persian empire defeated the Babylonians.  Through a crazy set of circumstances you can read about in Daniel 5, Daniel had just been pulled out of retirement when the Persians took over.  When King Darius set up the new order in the captured Babylon, he appointed Daniel to be one of his administrators.  But get this…Daniel is 80 years old at this point!

To make it even more interesting, at 80 years old, he’s still running circles around everyone else:

Daniel 6:3-5
Daniel distinguished himself above the administrators and satraps because he had an extraordinary spirit, so the king planned to set him over the whole realm.  The administrators and satraps, therefore, kept trying to find a charge against Daniel regarding the kingdom.  But they could find no charge or corruption, for he was trustworthy, and no negligence or corruption was found in him. 

Then these men said, “We will never find any charge against this Daniel unless we find something against him concerning the law of his God.”

And that’s exactly what they did…they went to King Darius and convinced him that no one should petition or pray to anyone except the king, lest they be thrown into the lions’ den.  There were a lot of political undertones to their proposal, but we can’t get into them here and now…the end result was that Darius signed their proposal into law.

What I want to ask is…what would your response be?

If everything you have earned and built in your 20, 30, 40, or even 80 years was suddenly in jeopardy if you get caught simply whispering a prayer, what would you do?

Would you stop praying altogether?
Would you pray only when you’re certain no one is looking?
If someone asked you pointedly, “Did you pray today?”, would you lie?

Those are tough questions.

So, what did Daniel do?

Daniel 6:10
When Daniel learned that the document had been signed, he went into his house.  The windows in its upstairs room opened toward Jerusalem, and three times a day he got down on his knees, prayed, and gave thanks to his God, just as he had done before.

The most incredible phrase in that verse is likely the one you didn’t notice.  I can say that because I didn’t notice it either, until recently – and I’ve heard the story of “Daniel and the lions’ den” countless times since childhood.  It’s the last phrase that is the most striking: just as he had done before. 

Daniel wasn’t praying out of defiance to the king’s order.  He wasn’t praying in a panic, looking for God’s guidance because his circumstances were suddenly more than he thought he could handle on his own.  Daniel’s prayer time – his conversations with God – were a normal part of his daily life. 

Daniel’s three-times-daily appointment was so important that he was willing to risk everything just to keep meeting with God in prayer.

I marvel at that.  I want to be like that…but I haven’t always been that way.  “Just as Ken had done before” wouldn’t be an accurate description of my daily time talking with God.

But it can be for me…and for you…if we start today.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Finding hope as the world grows dark

The world news headlines are crazy right now, aren’t they?

Israel is at war with Hamas.  Hostages have been taken.  No one knows if other countries are going to get involved or if it’s all just political posturing.  Protests are happening around the world and people are taking sides, some pro-Palestinian, some pro-Israel.  Everything around the situation is tense.

In the US, Republicans and Democrats can’t get along.  Shocking, right?  But over the last few years, party in-fighting is become just as vicious as the fights that happen between the two major parties.  There appears to be no end in sight for this kind of behavior.

AI is going to take over the planet in the next 10 years.  No one knows how, outside of jokes and memes, but the serious thinkers are quite scared of the potential disruption to nearly every industry.  And let’s not talk about what will happen when countries start using AI against their enemies.

Homelessness is reaching peak crisis levels in several major US cities.  No solution is perfect or simple, and governments who stall will only allow the situation to worsen.  Drugs, crime, mental illnesses, and a variety of other tough topics make the homeless crisis a complicated and disheartening predicament.

Those are just four topics I quickly pulled off of a news app on my phone.  There are plenty more stories to choose from.  National stories, local stories, personal stories…the more we look at the world around us, the harder it seems to find answers.  The more we read or watch the news, the darker the world becomes.  It’s difficult to think through any one of these problems, but to have all of them happening all at once?  Totally overwhelming.

The Sunday School response to all these situations would be to simply say, “Jesus is the answer!” And while many would roll their eyes, scoff at the suggestion, or question how Jesus would deal with the complex issues of our times…what if a person who lived through similarly tough times was making that claim, would it change our response?

I’d like us to consider the life of the apostle John.  He wrote 5 of the books in the New Testament – one gospel, three letters, and the book of Revelation.  John's gospel was likely one of the last books of the Bible to be written. Many scholars date John writing it in the late 1st century, even into the early 90's. Why is that significant? Because by that time, the world had changed a lot since John was following Jesus as a teenager in the early 30's. He lived through the Christian persecution primarily by the Jews in the 40's and 50's, but persecution had become common among the rest of the non-Jewish world as well.  He saw Jerusalem destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and his people scattered among the nations.  Roman politics would make our current political issues look like playground disputes.  During John’s lifetime, the Roman emperor has changed every 10 years or so, with each one bringing significant fluctuations in personality, rulership, and attitude towards Christians.  Rome was a very pagan country and did not allow any challenge to the emperor’s rule.  On top of all of this, Rome as a country and as a governing body has only gotten stronger during John’s lifetime…and John still writes:

John 1:4-5
In [Jesus] was life, and that life was the light of men.  That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

That's a lot of hope and trust right there. Regardless of the growing darkness John has witnessed, he still points to the light that was not overcome.  In this light, John found life, and he shared it with anyone he could. 

Did John stop the “evil empire”?  No.  In fact, he was exiled at one point.
Did John put an end to persecution? No.  He experienced it himself.
Did John see the restoration of his home nation? No.  Israel was decimated during his life.

However, despite all this darkness, John insists that Jesus shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome Him. 

When we check out the news and look at the problems in our world today, it’s easy to get caught up in finding a human-driven solution to try and fix everything.  It may be counter-intuitive, but following John’s example will bring us towards real resolutions.  John focused on the light, not the darkness.  This doesn’t mean he just fixated on positive, fluffy thoughts and ignored everything else.  His statement above doesn’t allow that.  Instead, John recognized that the light came from the life of Jesus.   

The life of Jesus isn’t something we can simply imitate…we can’t do that in and of ourselves.  However, Jesus will give us His eternal life when we believe in Him for it.  A little later in his gospel, John records this promise of Jesus:

John 3:16
For God loved the world in this way: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

No need to imitate what God freely offers for us to possess.  Believe in Jesus for eternal life, and He gives it to you – it’s as simple as that.  And when you have that eternal life, you can be the same kind of light that Jesus is in the darkness.  The darkness is still there, but we won’t be overcome by it.

Keep Pressing,
Ken