A God-tracked mind

I have already introduced you to two of my favourite guys in the Bible; Joshua and Solomon, and today you can meet number three. He’s young, gifted, and when we get to meet him he’s just been captured and taken to be a foreign royal aide. For those of you up on your Old Testament bibliographies, you’ll know I’m talking about Daniel (and you guys should get out more too). I look up to Daniel for a variety of reasons, many of which I plan to write about in the next 12 months, but most of all I look up to him because of what I want to encourage us in tonight; having a God-tracked mind.

In Daniel 6 we find my pal in a position of some responsibility and honour. Daniel was one of a three person team that ran the empire’s governance for King Darius. That sounds pretty cool to me. Sounds like he’s gonna be having some big decisions to make. Where do they store the grain? How many chariots to make for the army? How many small indefensible countries should they invade today? I mean this is important stuff. Babylon was a big big kingdom with a lot of people and many many things to sort out. So for Daniel to be on a three man leadership team, that’s pretty good going. I imagine he had quite a nice salary with that. Nice car (or chariot), nice pad, probably a large plasma TV (or cultural equivalent). Not only that, but he was in line for a promotion. We are told that Daniel had so impressed his boss that he was in line to become the top dog. That’s blatantly a pay bump and a new office, with a PA, and an automatic putting machine. All was going well for my hero.

However, like all good stories, in came the bad guys. Evidently Daniel didn’t have the best working relationships with his colleagues because once they got a sniff of Daniel’s promotion they screwed up their faces and set about plotting (by the way, if you ever get to see the Veggie Tales version of this story, at this point there is an AMAZING song. I highly recommend it). Now I think it’s pretty easy for us to think that these people are really out of line people who can’t applaud a genuine deserved promotion. However I work in promotion and I can tell you that when it comes to getting a promotion (or rather not getting one) people will fight tooth and nail to appeal, or check assessor decisions, or review their answers, or just whine. When it comes to moving up the career ladder, people will do whatever they can do get ahead. So in truth, these guys plotting against Daniel weren’t that unusual. Having said that, the plan they came up with was both simple and genius. They tricked king Darius into signing a decree to make it illegal to pray to anyone but King Darius himself. This wasn’t so much a trap for Daniel as a shot straight to the head. It wasn’t going to fail. Why? Because they knew Daniel, they knew he had a God-tracked mind.

What impresses me most about this story is that shows that Daniel was committed to the Lord both internally and externally. Firstly, externally. Think about the processes his colleagues went through to think up a plan…‘what is the easiest thing we can trip Daniel up on?’ They searched high and low for a legitimate way to slander his name. They found none. They were left with deception. So they looked at the biggest thing in Daniel’s life. They picked his faith in God. Wow. This means Daniel was living a life that made it explicitly obvious where his true loyalties lay. They knew he prayed. They knew he trusted in his Lord. If my colleagues were ever trying to trip me up I don’t think they’d pick my faith. Sure they know I’m a Christian, but has my life around them so far indicated that it is so important to me that they could manipulate it? I very much doubt it. Daniel on the other hand had, somehow, had this abundantly clear. They realised he had a God-tracked mind.

Secondly, internally Daniel had nothing he valued more than his God. How do we know this? Simple, just look at what he had to lose. He was in the top three most important people in kingdom, he had found favour with the king and no doubt many other people, his reputation was sky high, he had wealth and comfort in the royal palace, and he had an amazing position of influence; a good influence, he lived out Godly values in a high profile position. Of all the things Daniel could’ve valued, I think the last one must have been the most tempting to relax his prayer life for. All he had to do with stop praying openly. He didn’t even have to stop praying. He could’ve just stopped following the Jewish tradition of praying three times a day in his room. Surely that wasn’t a big loss? Especially to keep hold of all the things he had. But not Daniel, his only focus was his God. It was the only thing that mattered to him and he knew that he wanted to pray to God like he had yesterday, the day before and the whole of his life. So on the day that the new decree was passed Daniel went to his room and kneeled as he prayed. He was so God-tracked that not only did he pray but he took his true position before his Lord. He humbled himself, in the process making it even more clear he was praying, the laid his requests. He risked everything. He made it clear that nothing mattered as much to him as his God. Not fame, not reputation, not influence, not wealth. He had a God-tracked mind.

I find it easy to both stand in awe at Daniel whilst removing myself from challenge but saying ‘Gee I’m glad I’m not ask to make decisions like that in my life!’ I think it’s pretty easy for us to do that with a lot of the historical aspects of the Old Testament. But the more I’ve thought about these stories and expanding them in words, I’ve realised that they really aren’t a world away from ours. On a daily basis I am asked the question, through a situation or even a direct probe, ‘what do I value most in this world?’ When I’m asked what I did at the weekend, or when I see or hear someone say something offensive and decide whether to challenge it, or when I choose how to focus my time, I’m continuously answering the question ‘what is my mind tracked on?’

In this western culture most of us have a lot. We have wealth, comfort and luxury. Daniel had been given these things too, but throughout it all he maintained a God-tracked mind and when it was all threatened to be taken away, he made his decision with his hands and his knees. I think Daniel lays down a challenge to us all. Each and everyday we are asked and show where our minds are focused on. Daniel was willing to give everything. Are we?