WHERE DOES AUDACIOUS COURAGE COME FROM?

I will praise you as long as I live, lifting up my hands to you in prayer.” Psalm 63: 4

Daniel and his experience in the lion’ den seems just too impossible to be believed or that is more a fable of some sort. However, it is no fable but a real story that took place. One truth I had not considered until recently is that God did not deliver Daniel OUT of the lion’s den but He delivered him IN the lion’s den.

Many times God will take us OUT of our problems. But just as important are the times where He will leave us there and be there with us as we face them down head on. He lets us walk through them. In that case, we learn to face our giants, but also learn to depend on the giant of all giants…the king of all kings….God our father. This was how I see it with Daniel. The Lord was with Him in that den as were some angels. Out of the most worst conceivable situation imaginable, came the ultimate good. God was then, and is now a God of miracles. When God is in it….we win it. We need to never lose sight of that.

Another very important fact to remember from Daniel is that he was a man of prayer. Daniel was a spiritual man and a man full of purpose and he knew that purpose. Here in this situation, we learn he is a persecuted man as well. But the information leading up to this, we learn he was a praying man.

When Daniel learned of the law banning praying to anyone but the king what did he do? Did he wring his hands?...Did he complain that it was just not fair?. ..Did he run to pray in secret and private?...NO…..”But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down AS USUAL in his upstairs room, with its window open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to his God.” Daniel 6: 10

“JUST AS HE HAD ALWAYS DONE.” Daniel had done this same prayer routine since his youth. He still was doing in these later years. The audacious courage filled him the moment he hit his knees. The following is where we draw our AUDACIOUS COURAGE:

IF YOU KNEEL BEFORE GOD, YOU CAN STAND BEFORE ANY MAN.

“I prayed. God became more than faith. He became knowledge, and I appealed to him. Then I became ashamed. Why hadn’t I embraced him so thoroughly before?”

Jeremiah Denton, speaking about his captivity in North Vietnam