Recently, in my bible study, we have been reading the book of Daniel. One of the things that stood out this week was from Daniel 6; Daniel in the Lions’ Den. In this part of the book, Daniel is around 80 years old and is in the service of Darius the Mede, King of Babylon.
In this well-known bible story, Daniel has been appointed as one of three administrators to oversee the kingdom, but because of how Daniel presented himself among the king’s officials, the king planned for Daniel to have authority over the whole kingdom. Because of this, Daniel’s fellow administrators and officials plotted against him, ultimately leading them to convince the king to issue a decree that anyone who worshiped anything other than the king for the next thirty days would be thrown into a lions’ den.
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.
Daniel 6:10
This decree had been created solely because the administrators and officials could find no fault in Daniel’s conduct, but knew that they could frame Daniel if it had something to do with his faith. Daniel could have appealed to the king or hidden himself, but instead he chose to pray “just as he had done before”. His response reminded me of a quote that I read recently;
“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”
Archilochus, Greek poet
Daniel’s response to this deliberate attempt on his life was not something he decided to do in that moment. But because Daniel had intentionally sought the Lord every day to pray and give thanks, it was easy for him to choose to do the same in the midst of trials. If Daniel had not trained himself to find God the way that he had, it would have been harder for him to center himself around God in prayer.
In a situation where Daniel could do many things, he chose not to rely on himself but to surrender his problem to God with thanksgiving. Because he had spent so much time with God, he knew who to go to in times of trouble.
Daniel made time to be with God each and every day. How can we train ourselves to stay rooted in our faith and relationship with God, so we won’t be shaken when we are faced with the things Daniel was?