Will You Give Them A Stand?
Have you ever experienced the amazement
of learning something new about an old friend?
A tidbit of backstory,
a life-long dream or achievement you'd never known before. It's a
wondrous surprise when we look at someone we know well and find there
are yet mysterious layers to their soul we've never seen.
Recently, I experienced this with a
very old friend. Though my friend and I are separated by thousands of
years and separate cultures, I've known him all my life. He is a
humble man, yet is known the world over. His childhood was ordinary,
yet marked with divine design. His latter days quiet, yet famous. But
in every season of life, the simple tenacity of his faith is a
monument to the power of God and a pattern to millions. His name, is
Daniel.
Daniel; surely you remember him now. The
lad who bargained for simple, kosher food instead of the unclean,
government mandated fare with an official in the most powerful empire
at the time. The youth gifted as an interpreter of visions and who
deciphered the literal handwriting on the wall spelling doom for the
Babylonian kingdom. The elderly man who was beloved by heaven for the
effectiveness of his prayers. Maybe he is your friend too; a
friend who is also a role model of holding fast to God when surrounded by a pagan culture.
But what I didn't know was how Daniel's
faith was nurtured. Did our role model ever have his own model of
what it meant to stand alone in obedience to God while most of his
countrymen bowed low in obedience to men?
It highly possible he did. While young
Daniel was memorizing his Hebraic alphabet, another
man was calling the people of Judah to repentance. Like Daniel,
Jeremiah was given his prophetic ministry at a young age. And if 600 B.C.
Jewish success standards were anything like those held by mainstream Christianity today,
Jeremiah was a dismal failure. His bold proclamation of God's word
rewarded Jeremiah with no converts, imprisonment and winner of the
least popular preacher of the decade medal. Yet Jeremiah stood fast
for his God – and nearly always alone.
Yet, it appears one boy was watching.
For the ministry of Jeremiah and childhood of Daniel overlap.
Jeremiah 26 records a sermon Jeremiah preached at the Feast of
Tabernacles – an event all Jewish men were required to attend.
Daniel would have been roughly thirteen years old. In the likelihood
he was at Jerusalem with his father, Daniel may have witnessed the
crowd rise in rage and condemn the faithful prophet to death in the
very temple of the Lord they came to worship. Can you imagine the
spike in Daniel's pulse rate as he waited to see if God's man would
apologize or soften the truth just a little? Yet, even a murderous
mob could not cause Jeremiah to recant his message. Whether Daniel
ever met Jeremiah in person or not, it's almost certain this boy was
influenced by the famous preacher's ministry. Did Jeremiah's voice echoed
in Daniel's mind every time he chose to obey God rather than man?
Could Jeremiah himself foreseen his influence on a lad who would
become a mighty ruler in the very kingdom he prophesied about?
Friend, we don't always know who is
watching. But we can know they are never
watching more intently than when we stand alone. Our stand of
obedience to God – in the great and small – is a gift
we can bequeath to a new generation long after we are gone. Will you give the Daniel in your life a stand?
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