Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
19Then the king in the dawn arose in the daylight and in haste to the pit of the lions he went. 20And approaching to the pit to Daniel, the king cried in a grieved voice answering and saying to Daniel, “Daniel, servant of the living God, your God whom you serve constantly, was He able to deliver you from the lions?” 21Then Daniel with the king said, “O king, live to ages. 22My God sent His angel and He shut the mouths of the lions and they have not hurt me because before Him innocence was found to me and also before you, O king, I have done no harm.” 23Then the king was very good upon him and he said to take up Daniel from the pit and Daniel was brought up from the pit and all of harm was not found in him because he trusted in his God.
On the one hand, this is, of course, a marvelous story of God’s miraculous power to protect His people and to turn even complete injustice into victory. On the other hand, I think it is worth noting that all of this is just one more expression of the fractal of our very existence. As believers, we live in a world where our “adversary, the devil, roams about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (I Peter 5:8). Whether we encounter his malignancy as a pit of lions or a fiery furnace, or if it is just the aches and pains of old age, we all face hardships every day. Just like Daniel, our hope is not that somehow we’ll escape such troubles.
We’d all like to believe, since we know the Lord, He will somehow shelter us from troubles and make our lives “easy.” Then, like poor Job, the freight train of this world’s evil comes crashing through the living room of our souls, and we’re reminded Jesus said, “In this world, you will have trouble…” (John 16:33). No doubt it is a direct reference to Daniel when the writer of Hebrews says, “By faith, some shut the mouths of lions…” (11:33), but we should all note, that is in the middle of an entire chapter recounting heroes of faith. Even that writer, after 31 verses, exclaims, “What more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about…!” My point is that the history of God’s people is a history of faith, a history of many, many people who faced evil in a myriad of different forms, trusted God through it, and won the victory, whether through life or through death.
In this very world, the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, “At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me; may it not be counted against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was rescued out of the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (II Tim. 4:16-18).
What happened to Daniel, in reality, happens to you and me all day every day in a million different ways and on a million different scales. It is the fractal of our existence. It is not a question of whether we’ll face our own dens of lions, but rather what form they’ll take and when and where, and then whether we will or won’t be people of faith through it all. Peter tells us, “So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good” (I Peter 4:19).
I suppose I’m writing all of this because I fear we too often read accounts like this in the Bible, are awed by the great faith of these Bible heroes, then go back to our own workaday worlds never realizing the story was really about us! The Lord Himself specifically says these things “were written for our admonition, upon whom the end of the ages has come” (I Cor. 10:11), and “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4).
As we would ponder this wonderful Bible story, may we take from it the encouragement that we can have that same faith, trust this same God, and be “heroes” of faith in our own little worlds. We will face our own lions’ dens in a million different ways, but, if we will but trust Him, we will find our God just as faithful to us as He was to Daniel.
Lord help us.
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