In the last minutes of the election in the United States, at least in the central time zone, I was in lecture at Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) and yeah, I thought about not going, as usual. When I was talking to my friend the day after, we were talking about how easy it is to let an excuse prevent us from interacting with His Word – studying, hearing the living Word and being in community through kingdom discussions. So while I had excuses in my pocket to not go, I got up and got to my BSF location.

At the beginning of lecture, before our leader got into the text and lesson, she told us a story that led into the lesson itself in a resounding way. Basically, you can have joy when you already know victory is guaranteed. She came back to this truth at the end. As believers, we already have victory in Jesus, who paid it all. As citizens of God’s kingdom, we reign victorious with Jesus forever. He is subject to no one.

Knowing the outcome changes everything in our lives.

How anxious we can be when we don’t know the outcome. How anxious we are when our fates appear to be in the hands of people we don’t trust, or in others in general.

This past week’s lesson and notes were so incredibly timely, that only God could have planned this particular reading for this particular week in American history.

Our reading was long, so I won’t post all that here, but I encourage you, if you haven’t recently, to read Daniel! It ties into Revelation seamlessly, as the Bible as a whole is one consistent and reliable source. The parallels are sometimes mind blowing to think about because of the gap in time in which they were written. Here we have the book of Daniel, penned centuries before Jesus’ birth and then we have Revelation which was after Jesus’ ascension. Isn’t that wild?

We focused on Daniel 1-2; 6-7. In these chapters, we’re introduced to the circumstances that brought Daniel into royal service under King Nebuchadnezzar, along with his three friends. The story focused on in this lesson is that of Daniel’s faithfulness to God no matter what he faced. When the food violated God’s food laws, Daniel respectfully asked permission to eat a vegetarian diet and drink only water for 10 days. Mercifully, he was granted this request. God delivered them by being healthier than all the other men. Later, when Daniel was much, much older, the other government leaders around him were jealous of his favor with the king. They planned to trap him because they couldn’t find fault in him. They had the king sign into effect that he was to be the only one prayed to for 30 days. Daniel’s immediate response wasn’t any different than any other day, but his response was to immediately go to God in prayer. He was sent to the lion’s den, much to the king’s regret. But God! God saved Daniel by shutting the mouths of the lions.

In Daniel’s case, he had full faith in God and knew that with prayer, anything was possible with Him.

Some things that I drew from the story and notes were that, first, we don’t have to let our circumstances or location impact our commitment to God. We’re called to a certain standard, to live holy lives, and it doesn’t say “if you’re here” or “if you’re there.” There are no exemptions. You’re all in or all out, and Daniel gives us a prime example of being all in. Our earthly kingdoms should not disrupt our faithfulness to an unchanging God. What is most likely to disrupt your faithful commitment to your Creator?

Secondly, we can be comforted that God never changes. Our kings and kingdoms (or presidents, countries, etc) may change – that’s actually a guarantee – but we don’t have to rest our hopes and dreams on them. We have Someone who rules over all of that, who establishes that, and never changes, no matter how badly people try to manipulate His Word or His people. Daniel’s faith was placed in a commitment to God, who He knew was the true Authority. What is your source of comfort and refuge?

Lastly, we cannot walk with Him and also walk with the world. As I said before, we have to be all in, and being all in means we can’t have a foot (or any other appendage) in something else. So much of the world consumes the church in America today. It’s tough, it really is. Staying busy keeps us in constant contact with the world and the more time we spend with the world, the less time we’re spending with Him. Another important truth to live by is being in the world, not of it. While we’re here, we’re to make wise decisions that align with our beliefs, to participate in rights like voting. We’re not called to make politics and candidates in particular like idols to hang everything on. How are you aligned?

In all these things, we can be joyful in truth, that God has a great plan for us. Greatness never promised to be easy or lacking destruction. Greatness is sometimes refined in fire. In Him, we find all sufficient and in Him we find joy.

I’m thankful that we already know He is victorious – He’s overcome and paid it all. No matter how the election turned out for you personally, we continue to pray for our nation and our president. We live in a world that’s full of sin, corruption and pure evil. One president being elected over the other doesn’t make that go away or make it worse. We are on a path and the end is near (though we don’t know exactly how near) so while it’s scary, yeah, we know what’s ahead. We can step out in faith and be the light to a decaying world. How will you be like Daniel in the weeks to come?