If I were to ask you to tell me something about the book of Daniel, you would most likely share the courageous story of how Daniel survived the lions den. What if there was much more?

It was during the spring/summer of 605BC when everything fell apart for Judah, Daniel and his people. It was when Babylon, under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar descended upon them, defeated them and took them captive away from their homeland. Daniel taken from his home, now found himself in a full immersion program for the purpose of teaching the language and culture of the Babylonians in preparation for service to the king. Daniel did well, because at the end of his training he became one of the kings advisers.

Then Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that really perplexed him so he assembled his advisers to figure out the dream. Here is the rub…the king required both a description and an interpretation, without telling anyone what it was. When they told him this was humanly impossible, he flipped out and sentenced all of them to death. Daniel being part of this bunch went to the king and in full confidence told him that he could do both. Daniel then comes before the Lord in prayer and it must of been something like this, “God, help! If You don’t they are going to kill me.” God comes to Daniel in the night through a dream and gives him both the dream and its interpretation. As you can imagine the King was impressed, Daniel gets promoted and most importantly, he gave honor and glory to God, proclaiming Him superior to all gods. Imagine that?

Full of pride and not fully understanding the dream, king Nebuchadnezzar decides to build a big statue of himself and forces the people to worship it. The penalty of not worshiping the statue was death.

Lets roll the story forward a bit. Years have passed and Daniel? becomes one of the three administrators appointed to oversee the actions of the 120 princes answering only to king Darius. As you could imaging, Daniel’s position and favor stirred up some jealousy. He was the only Jew after all and the only one who had governed in Babylon before its defeat. To them he was both an outsider and a loser, clearly not deserving of the honor. Those fueled by this jealousy devised a scheme that required everyone to pray only to the king and manipulated him through his vanity making it a capital crime to disobey.

Then it happened, one morning Daniel was caught praying to the Lord and since the king had signed the edict into law there was nothing he could for Daniel. The penalty was for Daniel to be thrown into a den of hungry lions. Again, Daniel’s prayer must of went something like this, “God Help! If you don’t I’m going to die.” You know the rest of the story.

Is there more to this story? Consider this…

When Daniel knew the Babylonians were coming, I’m sure that Daniel prayed and asked God to stop it, but God didn’t and they came. When the day of battle came, I’m sure that Daniel prayed asking God to crush them, but God didn’t and they won. When they were looking for young educated men to be taken away to be placed into a Babylonian immersion program, I’m sure that? Daniel prayed asking God to stop it, but God didn’t and Daniel was taken away. I’m sure Daniel was asking the question, “Where are you God?” Sound familiar?

Why didn’t God stop all of this from happening? I don’t know, but I know He had a plan.

What I do know is that there is more to the story and most of us loose sight of the fact that God is sovereign and in control and that the story is not over. I’m sure Daniel’s faith was tested through all of this, but he never gave up. He held fast on his faith to God.

I don’t know what you are going through right now, but don’t give up! Your circumstances are not your god, God is God.

Hope has a name and its Jesus Christ!