Kingdom Down: A Study in DanielSample

How to be Godly and Healthy in Crisis

We are winding down to the end of this epic book of the Bible, and at this point, God’s people are weary. Their church has been closed for 70 years, and Daniel is in a very complicated scenario as his life is at risk, people are in danger, the church is closed, and it seems like evil and death are winning while God is far away.

Daniel therefore experiences something called complex grief. The soul was built for good news. Good news is about the death, burial, resurrection, forgiveness of sin, and eternal life through Jesus Christ. Bad news overwhelms and floods the soul. It causes complex grief where you can’t even get over the first problem before another comes up.

He’s mourning, fasting, and just generally feeling awful, because he knows a war is coming and it’s about to get worse before it gets better. He's buried many of his friends. He has been in a very difficult season for his entire adult life - for 70 years he’s been faithful but has been unable to be in the presence of God with the people of God singing the praises of God. At this point, Daniel is feeling powerless. Perhaps the reason that he does not return back to Jerusalem from Babylon is because he's too old to make the journey. However, his God-given name, through his believing parents, was Daniel, which means “God is my Judge”, meaning “I live under God's judgment alone”. His faith in God’s faithfulness has kept him going all these years.

Here we see Daniel in the worst emotional state, but then God appears and tells Daniel that he is greatly loved. This word that is brought to Daniel is true for all of the children of God: You are greatly loved. Next he says not to fear, which is the most common command in the entire Bible, because our natural tendency is to fear.

At this point, Daniel has been fasting and praying, crying out to God for three weeks, but nothing has happened. Maybe you have felt like that. The crazy thing is that the angel tells him that, in the spiritual realm, Michael the angel has been fighting back the spiritual powers of Persia. In addition to the physical world we can see, is an equally real spiritual world that we can’t. As God is sending His divine powers into the fight to help his physical family, there is a fight for them to get there. What we see here is that just like the military, and the unseen demonic and the angelic realms, this realm has rulers. We hear of them as princes, chief princes, and kings here. They also have geographic outposts. He names various geographic places that have strongholds. What this means is that there are certain places that Satan has set up, basically outposts for demonic work, and he is seeking to take human life and to keep the church of Jesus Christ closed there. In addition, though, he has soldiers like Michael. Michael is an angel, a divine being.

God sees Daniel pleading for his people, and He listens and acts. We serve a good God who doesn’t abandon us or ignore us. He is in control of everything, and we don’t have to know the future when we know the One who holds it, as Daniel did.

How has God shown up in your life to encourage you? How can you lean on His strength instead of giving into fear?