WHY IS DANIEL STILL RELEVANT?

Day 1 Vision 1
Read Daniel 7

Let your imagination run as you read the description of the beasts. Open your mind to the imagery and what Daniel is seeing. Put yourself in his place as he is seeing this, and think about how you would have felt. Daniel is towards the end of the exile. He is old. God has blessed him in countless ways, because he had remained faithful to God.

Picture each beast and its destruction. As you get to verse 9, picture God sitting on His throne and taking His place to judge. Then, as the final beast is destroyed and thrown in the fire. And finally, as the son of man is brought into God’s presence floating on a cloud and given authority over everything.

What emotions are running through your mind at this time? What are you seeing? Write it down below in the comments box.

Now read the interpretation in verses 15-28. What are your thoughts now? Are they any different than before you read the interpretation? What I take from this is there will be trouble, more trouble, and even more trouble on top of that. But in the end, God wins and sets it all right with Jesus at His side. Think of the hope this ultimately brought Daniel, even though he was deeply troubled as described in verse 28. Does this bring you any hope with whatever trials and challenges you are working through?

Write down your thoughts. Take time to work through them and then read them to God. Keep in mind God is in control. Regardless of the trials and challenges you face, God ultimately has a plan and you are part of that plan.

Prayer
Lord, I give you my thoughts. Here they are:

Please take these and deal with them as you wish. Guide me as I seek to understand your will for my life and how this impacts my life. This is all beyond my understanding and only You can reveal its true impact for me. Please speak to me. In Jesus name, amen.

Day 2 Vision 2
Read Daniel 8

Like yesterday, get lost in the imagery. Picture the ram with the two horns destroying everything. Now picture the goat with the single horn appearing on the scene and then attacking the ram and ultimately destroying it. Don’t dwell too much on the violence. Now picture the single horn being destroyed and the 4 horns growing in its place. Picture the goat as it is getting more powerful. Then as those horns grow they are overtaken by a single horn that grows in all directions and ultimately toward heaven.

As you read verses 11 and 12, write down your thoughts. How are you feeling at this point in his vision? Things aren’t looking so great.

Reading the interpretation in verses 15-25, picture each section of the explanation. What emotions does it bring in you? How do you feel right before you read the last sentence of verse 25? Part of me is asking WHY? Why is he getting to bring all of this destruction? Why is he getting his way when we know he is wrong? Then as we read the last sentence of verse 25, we get relief. Notice that he is brought down, but not by human power. Humans will not be able to defeat this ruler in their own power. Only God can defeat him.

Think about Daniel. He was worn out and couldn’t work for several days. No, this is not permission to take the next few days off of work. What comfort do you feel knowing that God can defeat the Prince of princes? As you take your notes, write down all of your thoughts.

Now that you have all of that written down. Read it back to God and give it to Him. Remember, God has a plan and is in control. He sees your struggles and wants to help with them. We just need to give them to Him.

Prayer
Lord, as You allow me to process the second vision by Daniel, speak to my heart. I have read to You my thoughts, feelings, and questions while I read the verses. Again, I do not fully grasp the imagery and meanings of each section. I do, however, take comfort in knowing You have it all under control and nothing is happening without Your knowledge. Help me to learn from my personal troubles, so that I can become the person you need me to be. Amen.

Day 3 Daniel’s Prayer
Read Daniel 9

This chapter brings us a prayer for God’s people from Daniel. Put yourself in Daniel’s place as he is saying his prayer. Picture yourself as Danial as you read the chapter. Now read verses 1-19. This was nearing the end of the time of exile. Daniel was pleading with God to remember and forgive His people and keep His promise to end the exile. Can you feel the weight Daniel felt as he was praying? What if you reread verses 1-19 as if Daniel was praying for you? How can you relate to the trials and challenges of the Israelites? Take notes on what you are feeling.

As you go into verses 20-27, don’t get caught up in the 7s and weeks. Just acknowledge that it is a long period of time. Does this section bring to mind any specific person or period in history or future? Write it out.

Notice what Daniel was doing when the angel appeared to him. What was that? He was confessing his sin and the sin of the Israelites and asking for forgiveness. As he was taking the posture of humility, God heard him and sent him a messenger in the form of an angel. When we take the posture of repentance and asking for forgiveness, God meets us where we are and reveals His will to us.

The foretelling of Jesus and his ultimate sacrifice for our sins brings a whole new set of emotions. We know the whole story, but Daniel did not. Think about how Daniel would have been feeling. All he understood was the Levitical law. So this final sacrifice and new covenant would have been faith shaking for him. If you are able, think about how you felt before you knew about Jesus or about how He can forgive you of your sins. Were we much different than Daniel? Did we fully understand God’s vision for this world and our lives?

The reality is that we are still trying to figure that out what God is asking us to do daily. We are still trying to stay connected to God in ways that challenge us the more we seek Him. We need to continue to seek forgiveness from God. As we do, ask Him to reveal Himself to us in everyday things. God’s got this. His plan is in full force and we get to be a part of that overall plan.

Prayer
Lord, please forgive me for the times I have fallen short of Your plan for my life and when I have missed the mark You placed before me. Help me to seek You daily. I am grateful that You see beyond my mistakes and see me as the fully forgiven child that You created me to be. Help me to live like that, daily. Amen.

Day 4 The Final Vision
Chapters 10-12 are a single vision. Daniel 10:1-11 is the introduction of the vision. Daniel 11:12-12:3 is the vision itself. Finally, Daniel 12:4-13 are the interpretation of the vison. There is a lot to take in here. Daniel describes how the vision affected him physically and mentally at the beginning of chapter 10. Has God ever revealed something to you that shook you to your core? If so, what was it? Place that in the notes.

Again, as you read this, place yourself in the place with Daniel. Be one of his companions that was with him, but stay there. What sense of awe or fright do you feel? Does the angel’s response help that? All throughout the bible, the angel’s initial response to a human is “do not be afraid.” All I can imagine is that the being was so outside of the realm of possibility of what we expect that it scares us. I played around with AI to try and recreate some of the beasts and beings that were described in all of Daniel’s visions, and it didn’t even come close to what he saw or what I envision he saw.

As you come to the interpretation, process what you feel he is saying. Process how Daniel was feeling knowing all of this information. We know Christ is coming back, but we don’t know when. We have the benefit of having the Bible and scriptures that tell of the Israelites’ story, Jesus’ story, and the story of the new church. Daniel did not. These concepts would have been foreign to him and hence the reason he was rocked to his core.
Spend time today just in awe of God’s power. Look at the world around you. Look up at the sky. Look at the trees, birds, animals, etc. Take in God’s creation. Then ask God to reveal His truth to you. Allow Him to speak to your soul and reveal things to you that you may have never known before. Even if you don’t like what you sense, don’t push it away. Let Him speak to you.

He may reveal things of your past that you need to deal with or ask for forgiveness for. Don’t push that aside. Deal with it. From Daniel’s prayer in Chapter 9, he started with asking for forgiveness, then God spoke to him. Do the same. You may not receive a vision of the future, but then again you might. Write down what God reveals to you and process that. When we honestly open ourselves up, He will reveal what we need to know. Don’t forget that God is ultimately in control. He guides our steps and we need to follow. Rest in that knowledge.

Prayer
Lord, speak to me. Reveal in me what I need to know to be able to move toward what You are calling me to. If there are unrepented sins, please reveal those to me so that I can be clean and prepared for Your next step for me. Then Lord, please show me my next step. I want to trust You with each step. Help me as I lean on that trust and to not move ahead of where you are calling me to be. Amen.

Day 5 What Do We Do With This?
Read 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, Hebrews 11:33-34

We ended yesterday with hopefully some deep reflection. Any lasting impressions from that? What do you think we should take from these last chapters of Daniel? To be honest, when I started reading through these chapters I was not sure what alI I needed to take from this. Even in writing this devotion much of its symbology and meaning gets lost in the minutia of how it affects me. Maybe none of this really moves you. Maybe for others this imagery and information speaks to you in ways that you don’t understand. That is the beauty of scripture.

What I am taking from this is that God knows the future. He knows what will happen today, tomorrow, 6 days from now, 5 years from now, and 1,000 years from now. In CS Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity, he describes that like an author knows all about the characters in the book, God knows all about us as He is our Creator. The author knows the ending of the book, and is therefore in the future of those characters as he is creating their here and now. God is the same way. He is in our future, so he sees our past and everything in between. Ultimately, God is in control. He knows what we don’t know. He knows what holes, traps, cliffs, etc. are in front of us and is trying to guide our footsteps to avoid those. We just need to allow Him to. When those detours hit us, we need to follow them instead of fight them. While it might feel like God is driving our ice cream truck to the desolate desert with no one to sell ice cream to, what we don’t know is that there may be a cosmic event about to happen that will drive people our way to buy ice cream. Don’t fight the detours or unexplained deserts. Ask God what you need to learn from it.

Sometimes we need to look past the imagery and flowery language and just sit and listen to the core of the message Jesus is trying to speak to us. Go back to the still small voice. Relax, God is in control. Allow Him to set your next step and follow His lead. He knows our thoughts, struggles, and needs and is gracious to meet them, if we let Him.

Prayer
Lord, guide my steps. One by one. Help me to not get ahead of where you are calling me to be. Help me see your plan even in the detours and desert places. I truly want to serve You and follow where You lead. Please show me the way. Amen.