“Found faithful?”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Monday, April 17, 2023
Daniel 1:1-21 (Forward, p. 78) CEV p. 894
Today’s title is a little bit of a teaser. By that, I mean, ‘just who is it that has been found faithful?’ Is it the four Hebrew young people, who scrupulously adhered to the Jewish dietary laws, in spite of intense pressure to do otherwise? Or, is it our God, who blessed them with good health and with superior wisdom and intelligence? I suspect that it is probably a mixture of the two.
Anyway, what this meant was that the four young men found themselves in incredible positions of power and influence, right there in the royal court of Babylon. Yes, right within the palace of their former oppressor, right during what was to be part of their people’s exile.
To me, this says loads of how God can choose, equip and use His people if they are willing to be used. We never know just where God may place us, what people we may rub shoulders or be in contact with, or what influence or effect we might have. And, as with the case of these three men, God can train us up and equip us with whatever talents or gifts we require for that new role. I am sure that Daniel, with his God-given ability to read or tell the meaning of dreams and visions, never had the faintest idea of where that might lead him. And, so it is with each of us. We probably do not have even the faintest idea of what God has for us, if only we will submit to His will and let Him lead us. So,, will be found faithful, even as these four young people were, and even as God was and is? Amen.
Forward notes: “Daniel also had insight into all visions and dreams” (verse 17b).
“In his book, Dreams: A Way to Listen to God, Morton Kelsey writes about how dreams are important not only in the Bible but also in our own spiritual lives.
“I often share my significant dreams with my spiritual director. God uses not only our waking hours but also our sleeping hours to speak to us. I once left a cushy position after a dream in which I said, ‘It’s beautiful here, but there’s no air.
“Of course, not every dream has deep meaning: as a priest I’ve dreamed about arriving to a service without a sermon or vestments! But I urge you to pay attention to the dreams that speak powerfully to you. I even write mine down in a journal in the morning so I won’t forget them. Daniel was a prophet and each of us can be prophetic if we are willing to look hard—not by seeing the future but by attempting to see God’s version of the present, as Rabbi Abraham Heschel writes about in The Prophets. People often do not want to see as God sees—that would require too much honesty, demand too much change—and yet God keeps speaking to us, even through dreams.”
MOVING FORWARD: “God is speaking. Are you listening?”