Daniel....

Good Morning All!

I hope everyone's weekend has found them rested and rearing to go :o) I decided to go back to one of my favorite books in the Bible, which is Daniel. God has always used this book to speak to me when life is feeling out of control, when worry is on my doorstep (and breaking the door down), and when I just need to read about God's power in an ordinary person's life in extraordinary circumstances...

For those of you who aren't familiar with what was happening during Daniel's time here's a quick intro. from the Life Application Bible:

"If you are a Jew in Babylon, you've got reason to be depressed. Jeremiah was right all along. All those times you thought he was one taco short of a platter, he was telling the truth! Jerusalem is in ashes. The Temple is in ruins. And you and the rest of your people are in captivity. Your captors mock you, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" (Psalm 137:3). But you don't sing. You hang your harps on the poplar trees and sit on the banks of the river, watching the water and your days pass by. Who can sing songs about the Lord in a foreign country? Daniel can. Though he was only a teenager when taken captive, he remembers well the songs of his youth. Somewhere in his early years he came to believe that God was sovereign. Nothing happens without his permission. Nothing happens outside of his plan. But even Daniel could not have imagined the plans God had for him. Prime minister of the court. Interpreter of dreams. Prophet. Teacher. Ruler. A lifelong voice for God among pagan people. But though the central character of the book is Daniel, the hero is God. "There is a God in heaven...," Daniel told the king (2:28), and it was that God in heaven who sustained Daniel and the people while in captivity. That God, by the way, still reigns. And anytime God's people have hung up their harps, listen carefully. God always has a Daniel who remembers how to sing."

This book seems very relevant to me today - with what happened in Haiti, what is happening in our country, friends going to Iraq and Afghanistan, and another on the way to Mexico to be a missionary.... what does God have to say to me through Daniel....


Chapter 1:2 "And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, long with some of the articles from the temple of God."

First and foremost, the Lord delivered.... BOOM! Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon was not a man who feared God. Yet the Lord delivered, not only allowed, but delivered His people into his hands and items from His temple.

Hindsight is 20/20; I'm sure Judah looked back at the warnings, but then again was it still to early to see We're they in shock, upset, sad ~ still reeling that they had been taken captive and blaming everyone and everything including God but not looking at themselves.... yet????