Welcome to the Struggling Wellcast. We're glad you're here. We thank you for taking the time, just like There are a million churches, there are a million podcasts. So, thank you for coming here and listening. I was reminded this morning by our, incredibly talented producer that I had not given any kind of credit or shout out to our 80 lb Bernadoodle. So, Gus, this is for you. we love Gus. He's been on a diet recently. we cut back his dog food. And so, the lesson from that for me is start eating dog food and cut it back to one cup in the morning. cup at night. So,
is that what we're going to talk about Gus this morning?
Well, we could because he has there's a lot of illustrations that come from Gus, but we're not.
No.
Because this morning, what we're going to do, and it really flows into what we spoke on last time about prayer, is we're going to touch on the life of Daniel just a bit. Daniel was somebody who was resolute in his prayer life. And I think, you know, it's easy to read that and go, "Oh, yeah, of course. What else did he have to do. But you've got to understand the circumstances that Daniel lived under. And he there are a lot of unexpected things that happen to him. And there are a lot of unexpected things that happen in our lives as well. Like you go for a doctor visit, just your annual visit, and he the doctor finds something or you go to work and you find out that you've been let go. Things change quickly.
Yeah, they do. And I think that we think that we have control over our days and we do plan, but the truth of the matter is we don't know what a day is going to hold.
No, we don't. You know, I liken it to this that every day is kind of like the Charlotte International Douglas International Airport where the planes are coming in and the guy on the tower, I think this is how it works. The guy on the tower is telling them which runway to land on. And for us, it's the same thing. We don't know which runway we're supposed to be on. on or land on or take off from. And so we get really disoriented. and I think Daniel's life was thrown in an unexpected way. And I've come to realize that nobody gets what they expect. Nobody.
No. And I think that when he gets deported from Jerusalem into the Babylonian Empire, I don't know what expectations he had, but life was not something he could predict.
No, he couldn't do anything about it. And there were a lot of unwelcome things that happened to him like, you know, you're going to have to eat this certain food, you have to worship Nebuchadnezzar, all these things and tons more in the book of Daniel is a wonderful book to read. but all these unexpected and unwelcome things came into his life. I think we can understand that because the same thing happens to us. we people have a lot of opinions. about what we should do. And right now in the culture we're in, it's gone way beyond just giving an opinion. People are making certain ideas and concepts more like an edict. You have to do this,
right? And the exception to that is that at least what I have found is that everybody has to be accepting of all these things that you just have to live with the exception of what God says in his word.
Yeah. Yeah. I think Daniel also experienced unbearable circumstances, the kind that knock you off your feet. I remember when a sweet friend of ours, I think it's going to be three years now, husband passed away. Her husband passed away unexpectedly. It was an unwelcome transition from life to death and it was unbearable. I mean, you don't expect that. Even though someone is ill and you want them to be out of pain, death still is this unbearable thing that shocks us every time. don't we all expect that if we do certain things like we eat well and we exercise that all that's going to prolong our lives? And I think that Daniel had situations that were according to his culture and upbringing, he was as a devout Israelite, they were unbearable. the whole food thing is amazing to me. And also the worshiping of Nebuchadnezzar, which I mentioned before, that's unbearable for someone who's devoted to God.
Yeah. And somehow Daniel managed to thrive in Babylon and yet never changed on his convictions of who God was or what it meant to follow God. And again, I don't want to overstate that we live in a culture today like Babylon, but in some senses, we do. And how do I live? How do I thrive in all of that and at the same time stay absolely absolutely rock solid and what I know to be what it means to follow Christ.
Well, I think one of the things that I struggle with the most is when the unexpected, unwelcome, and unbearable come up, I want to manage it. I want to figure out somehow to get around it, get through it, deal with it, parcel it out. And so I think the first thing for my heart that I need to realize is I can't manage this.
Yeah. And so how do you how do you get to that place, Suzi, where you realize I can't manage it. And what does that look like then to release it to the Lord to handle?
Well, if we go to Daniel and we look at his example because that's what we have this morning. I think we see a couple of things. let let's remember this too that Daniel served under five kings. And during those five kings reign, there was always somebody wanting to kill him. It wasn't like he got to slide around and just do his own thing. They wanted to kill him. So there was evil swirling around him constantly. But there are a few things that he did. in chapter one, it says that he resolved. He resolved that he was going to pray just the way he had always prayed. he also had this great attitude. in Daniel 6:3 it says he had this incredible attitude. So when Nebuchadnezzar called on him, he wasn't trying to defend himself or fight with Nebuchadnezzar, but he had this great attitude of I'm going to serve this king. This is where God put me. And we know that he prayed. That was his habit. that's also seen in chapter 6. And again in six, the fact that he trusted that God was going to still be God regardless of his circumstances.
Yeah. And what I love in the story of Daniel, and it's often times overlooked, is that in I think it's in chapter 2 and verse 14, it says that Daniel excelled and moved forward in the Babylonian culture. with wisdom intact. Those two words are amazing to me. So he wisely moved ahead holding on to what he believed about God and he did it with wisdom intact. And I look at our culture today and what I see is so many Christ followers using social media to not use wisdom intact but to blast and to attack and to try to outshout their opponents. And I think for us it comes back to o obedience to his word.
Obedience to how he's called us to live. Not out of a sense of obligation, not that it produces my relationship with Christ, but it flows out of my relationship with him. And then can I learn can I learn from how God has been faithful throughout my life? Not just my life. I go back through all of history how he's been faithful and therefore trust him going forward.
Yeah. Isn't it interesting how when we're in a tough place that our faith in God is a first thing that goes not with everyone but a lot of times people just where's God? Why isn't he doing something?
right.
And I you know again I think we all have a choice. I was talking with a friend yesterday who has a tough medical diagnosis and I said this to him. I said cuz he said, "Well, I'm going to I just I have no choice but to trust God." I said, "No, you do have a choice. You could turn your face away from God or you could lean into God.
Yeah.
And it was like a new thought to him that he actually makes a choice when he trusts God that it that he does he could turn his face away from God.
Explain lean into God.
Well, I think it to me it is the sense that I'm going to find my hope ultimately in my relationship with Christ, which is ultimately tied to eternity. And I can't separate eternity from here and now. And I'm not home. We're not home. We are aliens and strangers in this world. So, where am I going to find my hope in the midst of if it's big picture things or whether it's my own personal life? Leaning into Christ or leaning into his face means I'm going to always point myself to my relationship with him as where my hope ultimately lies. Not that things are going to change, not that things are going to get better. And then Daniel didn't do this thinking that he was going to get out of Babylon,
right?
He did this because that's how he lived and his trust and his faith was ultimately in the God that he served.
And I think another important part of leaning in is being in scripture, reading it, letting it kind of seep into your heart and per permeate your mind and you know, not everybody's good at memorizing scripture, but get familiar with what it says because then when you're in those places, you're drawing from that well of God's word that just kind of springs out of you. And it's his word that's alive. His word that makes the difference. Not our words. Even I love that y'all are listening to this, but it's his word. It's who he is. That God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. That's where comfort is.
Yeah. And in the changing many times uncertain ways of this world, the confidence in who God is based upon his character, which is unchanging.
Yeah.
And that's what he calls us to. and so as we live in this world that we look at and we go, I don't like the direction the world's heading in or whatever we say there. Can I put my faith, my hope, and my trust like Daniel did in the God of the Bible.
Sit with that.
Have a great day. Thanks for joining us. To learn more about the Struggling Well podcast, visit tandemspirituality. com.