Know God, Know Peace
It’s now September, the first in the so-called “ber” months and it’s been seven months since the last time we can go out without worries, seven months of isolation, we are forced to stay inside and cannot travel with our friends and cannot even go out to just stroll!
Because of this, some of us experience depression, some of us lose our jobs, some of us have to work from home causing us to be more stressed because we cannot distinguish the workplace from home.
For me, this is what I called disruptor of my peace, it removes the peace I have from day to day living because of the pandemic.
The Lion’s Den experience
By the grace of God on one of my devotions, I stumbled upon the book of Daniel, specifically on the story of the Lion’s Den. Now growing up as a “batang Sunday School” I knew this story since I was a kid, I know that Daniel was put in a lions’ den and the next morning was still alive and not harmed because of God’s Protection. What an awesome story! But as I grew older, I realized that the story of Daniel is very wonderful, a story of dependence on God and a story of God as our peace.
For those that are not yet familiar with the story of Daniel, since day one of his life, he decided to put surrender his life to God, all of him. That’s why God favored him so much that he became part of King Darius’ satraps. These satraps are the so-called governors of our time and Daniel is part of this. He even is King Darius’ favored of all the satraps.
One day the other satraps became so jealous that they devised a plan to endanger Daniel, so they tricked King Darius into enforcing a decree that for thirty days no one will worship anyone except King Darius. King Darius cannot refuse this decree because this is in accordance with the law of the Medes and Persians, so the decree was issued.
Now if I was in the position of Daniel this will disrupt my peace, I will be worried, scared and might lose faith in God because if he is protecting me why would He allow these things to happen. But Daniel is different because he made a decision to follow God he was not afraid, instead he still worshipped God and he was not hiding it!
To continue the story, this is what the satraps are waiting for, so when they saw Daniel worshipping the Lord, he was arrested and brought to King Darius, and was found guilty and punished to be put to the Lion’s Den overnight. On the next day, the king hurriedly went to the sealed lion’s den, and to his surprised, Daniel is still alive.
In verse 21–22 Daniel answered,
“May the king live forever! My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight. Nor have I ever done any wrong before you, Your Majesty.
The Peace in our Lion’s Den
Because Daniel put his hope in the Lord, the Lord protected him!
In these times we can translate the Lion’s Den as something, someone, or an event that caused our peace to be disrupted. It doesn’t necessarily mean this pandemic is our Lion’s Den, it can be our work or our parents who are constantly fighting, and whichever it is, disrupts our peace.
In order for us to overcome the Lion’s Den of our lives, all we have to do is make a decision to know God, our Peace-giver. How can we know God? Just like with our friends we are to spend time with Him, surrender everything to Him and make a decision to put our hope in Him.
We might not know when we are going to get out of our own Lion’s Den but one thing is for sure when we know God we can know peace.
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Allen Eugenio
September 15, 2020