Would I Dare To Be A Daniel?

The question with which I finished a recent entry asked myself the serious question – would I dare to be a Daniel?

It would be easy to fall into extremes of the confident ‘yes of course I would, I would do it for Jesus’ or the defeated ‘maybe I’m too weak to risk those that mean most to me’.  Yet there is a legitimate process of answering the question, that emerges through an episode I had with my family recently.

God keeps on surprising me about myself.

I was play-fighting with my three daughters recently.  Abigail – the middle child all of 6 years old) had asked at the beginning of the day if she ‘could do WWE Daddy’ and I kept putting her off until I finally relented. Zozoz – the youngest – and I tag-teamed and subsequently dominated Deborah and Abigail.  I encouraged the girls not to disturb the neighbours with too much noise, which they successfully ignored as they were bashed to and fro.  It was good fun!

Later on, as they licked their wounds in their room, I sat next to my beloved wife and she informed me how pleasing it was to see her husband engage with his children in such a playful manner. She recalled a time when tthat was not the case, when the husband’s family engagement was all but nominal.  I (who still plays the role of the aforementioned husband) was somewhat startled at this, and on reflection concurred that indeed God had done a work in my life that I would not have previously recognised.

Lovely story, isn’t it?  And a true one too.  What does it have to do with daring to be a Daniel?

At the moment, I seriously question whether I would have the integrity to defy the government and do what was right in the sight of God with so much at stake.  At the moment I seriously question if like the biblical character Daniel I would retain the same habits that I held before legislation rendered it illegal.  At the moment I seriously question if like Peter and John I would defy the order of the religious (and indeed political) rulers of the day to continue proclaim – PROSELYTISE (ha, take that establishment) – the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Make no mistake, when we talk about spiritual wickedness in heavenly places we are referring to key influencers of political structures and philosophies that often bring themselves against God’s kingdom. In fact every day in some way we are being challenged as to whether we will submit to ungodly principles at a civil, legal and/or moral level.  Everything is political, just like everything is spiritual.

In the seriously questioning, though, I believe God.  I believe He lives in me.  I believe in the same way as the reluctant Dad of 2007 is now the child-playing Dad of 2013 there is no reason to believe that the nominal, two-timing, hypocritical cultural fake Christian of 1998 could be the Spirit-driven, bold, holy, righteous, Christ-honouring disciple of 2013.

No straightforward answer, but actually the best answer you could get from me about a very good question.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden