This is my story
Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today Mal Calladine gets into our second daily chunk of ‘daring Daniel’, an epic story that helps us be sensitive to God’s presence…
What did I like about today’s passage?
Happy Cinco de Mayo! NOT Mexican Independence Day, but a morale-boosting day that commemorates an unexpected victory and has emerged as a day to celebrate cultural heritage. The battle remembered was actually a small Mexican Army defeating the much larger French forces in 1862. Beer sales normally spike today as high as Superbowl Sunday – a day for Burritos and drinking Corona! (How our understanding of that brand has changed…) How can today be morale boosting, as we reflect on past stories?
Although chapters 5 and 6 recount two very well-known Bible stories (the writing on the wall, and Daniel in the lion’s den), I was most impacted by the weird dynamic (and brief change of author) of chapter 4. I love chapter 4 as unique in the Bible as a first-hand account of the person we read about in the previous chapters as the ruling enemy, now immediately telling personally of their encounter with God! (4:1-2). The NT equivalent might be Paul, as Owen unpacked in the talk on Sunday, but this example is immediate.
At the end of chapters 2 and 3 we saw King Neb involved in two extraordinary flashpoints: with Daniel (in chapter 2), then Dan’s promotion seemingly taking him out of town, for him to be absent for the chapter 3 altercation with his friends Rack, Shack and Benny. But those two huge encounters led to the king of the culture they are captive within encountering their God (2:47, 3:28-28). And then King Neb takes over writing the next chapter in the book! He starts ‘it is I… King Neb’ and then says in 4:2:
“It is my pleasure to tell you about the miraculous signs and wonders that the Most High God has performed for me.”
He then goes on to tell his view of the story of encountering the living God, which we’ve already read in chapter 2, his disturbing dream and Daniel’s interpretation.
There is something about hearing from someone who has newly encountered God first-hand, as a fresh reminder that He IS real and involved in our world.
And what got him to that place, by his own testimony, was God’s people knowing how to handle dreams well.
What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
That it is MOST about our relationship with God! That as we think about prophecy and dream interpretation for those we journey with, it’s not about the revelation so much as about our noticeable and contagious relationship with God. This hits me, especially in Daniel’s humble response to King Neb’s question: are you going to interpret my dream? “No wise man can do this; but there is a God who reveals mysteries” (2:26-27). He points to God, not himself. King Neb then recounts this conversation in 4:18, as “No wise man can interpret, but you can, because the spirit of the Holy God is in you.” (He actually says ‘gods’ - a new believer still working things out!). But the defining trust issue is that he sees God’s spirit is in Daniel. People notice! How we are doing with other people, how much they trust us and let us in, is linked to how much they see God in us. God does work despite and outside of us, but the mad thing is that he mainly chooses to work through us, where others can see Him in us. He gives us opportunity to point to him. That's when it works, when we point to him more than ourselves.
What am I going to do differently as a result?
Where do I need to point to God more intentionally? I think I’ve become wary of ‘super-spirituality’ around the issue of humility. For a while there was a Christian comic that was in the style of “Viz” called ‘The Winebibber’. It had various comic strip characters – Gordon Bews (out of the Good News’) – Bible actor! (the stories of the stick man who illustrates that Bible); and “Richard Bumble – he’s so Humble”, and the caption had him saying ‘Oh no, I’m not!’ That’s where my mind goes when I think about humility and pointing to God! Or the sports stars who point to the sky after victory; or the artisan who says about their creativity ‘it wasn't me’, sometimes making me think ‘it wasn't THAT good!”
But that can be an adventure in me missing the point – there is something for me to wrestle with here about how I appropriately do point to God and being spiritual; and acknowledge that He is the one doing the spiritual and impressive things around me. Intentionally pointing to God in the things people notice.
Who am I going to share this with?
I think the main opportunity we have to do this at the moment is with the Social Services team we get to work with day in, day out, in our role as foster carers. I enjoy being open with them about our household as one defined by faith; I’ll be looking for opportunities to echo Daniel.