Good morning everyone,
This is a quick piece before I head out on my vacation. I will try to write and post again next week, but this week was taken up with preparations, so I was unable to produce a quality post. But this morning an idea struck me: What the quest looks like during hardship and transitions.
A great example of this is the life of Daniel. His life was full of tumultuous turns. He was clearly intelligent and dedicated. He would have made a good servant for the people of Judah, had he not been carried off to a foreign land and forced to serve there.
Pause for a moment and think about what that would be like. Imagine training your entire life for service in one specific arena and everyone is cheering and supporting your progress. Your life is only looking up. And then your country gets invaded. The social and economic systems collapse and you get carried off to somewhere beyond anything you know or are comfortable with. You don’t know anyone. You don’t know if they will kill you, torture you, or force you to shovel manure for the rest of your life. You don’t know if you’ll ever see your homeland again. All of your training and schooling was leading you towards one life that isn’t even a possibility anymore. What do you do?
For Daniel, the answer was relatively simple, even though it wasn’t easy. He looked to the example of his ancestor, Joseph, and decided that no matter what happened, he would continue serving the LORD no matter what. He could have become embittered. He had every right to curse his situation, but he refused. Instead, Daniel made an intentional choice to serve God despite his circumstances—circumstances that none of us will likely ever face.
That isn’t to say we don’t have tough times. We still have hardships. A career path takes a wrong turn. We lose our job. A car wreck drains our savings. The list goes on and on: We suffer in many ways. We may not know what the future holds, but we can make one decision today: to serve God no matter what. We cannot control our circumstances, but we can control our faithfulness. Daniel did—and so can we.