fast day thirteen: Daniel 8

I'm with Daniel. I think I need to lie down. After seeing something like that (which all happened exactly as described during the second century BC by the way), I think I would be overwhelmed too. Part of what would be challenging about it though was Daniel's viewpoint as a Hebrew from that time. Daniel only knew of the God that related to his own chosen people of Israel. He lived at the end of the time of the kings. That era had gone on for centuries with generations of judges before them going back to Joshua and Moses' time. Four hundred years before that was when the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph walked the earth. I think surely he must have thought that God would restore His favored people to their exclusive place.

So to Daniel, nothing might have clued him in to God's bigger plan to redeem all of us, the Gentiles. This vision he saw was a clear picture that things were not going in the direction of Israel getting back on their feet as God's one and only people. They did go back to Jerusalem, as God had promised through other prophets, but it would never be the same.

I think sometimes our relationship with God is like that. We keep longing for some ideal of God from the past or from great stories of other people's lives, when really, God's plan for your walk with Him may take a dramatic turn. One you could never foresee, like a shaggy goat. Something WAY bigger and WAY better. But if God ever showed us what the world would be like years from now, we might be just as appalled as Daniel.

Psalm 119 says God's Word is a lamp for our feet and a light unto our path. I think that's just about right. I really only need to see the next step. I think I want to see the rams and their horns, but just a flashlight will do. Lord, your Word is everything I need. All I need to know. Let me always seek to know Him better through His Word.