As I study the book of Daniel, I marvel at his (and his three famous friends’) faith: Daniel doesn’t simply believe God is able to do anything, Daniel is certain about God’s willingness to respond to their prayers. Daneil is confident God will defend his own glory and his people. Many of us would say, “God can do anything,” but often don’t really believe that he will. Why is this? Are these two different kinds of faith? Is one genuine faith, and one not faith in God at all? Has our understanding of his sovereignty eclipsed our understanding of his character of mercy and steadfast love?
Isaiah 30:18 says,
Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.
Justice is often thought of as the opposite of mercy. But for God’s people, his justice insures his mercy. It is because of God’s justice that we do not deserve to be his people; yet, it is because of his mercy to us in Christ, we are! In Christ, the curse of our own sin, and the fallen world that results, become the gateway to his grace, as we call on him for mercy. He is glorified in both attributes.
Once we are his people, we deserve his help and care; he’s our heavenly father after all! His justice is now to our benefit. He asks us to come to him for help. To wait on him. To trust in him wholeheartedly, and not try to make sense of things on our own. He knows you and I are poor and needy; he knows we can’t help ourselves -at all. We are helpless before him in every respect, and we need him. It would be unjust for him to ask us to wait on him, if he were not going to mercifully respond to our trust!
The more time I spend in Daniel, the more I think God wants me to believe this: not merely that he can help, but that he will. We can’t hold him hostage or presume upon him to follow our prescription in each situation, thats not faith. Using God to get what you want is idolatry. But we can trust him – his goodness and love – to do what’s good; he has a plan, and he’ll work it out, and it will be best for everyone. He will defend his own name, and provide for his children, in a better way than we could have asked for.
Daniel’s friends show us what this heartfelt trust looks like as they refuse to bow to a statue of gold: “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (3:18) They would rather burn to death than be disloyal to the God who has proven himself faithful to them. This is the obedience that trust produces. They did not seek out the Judean SEAL team for a rescue, they just waited on God. And what really happened makes a far more dramatic story.
In our varied situations we, like Daniel, Shadrach, Mechach, and Abednego, can trust God to do miracles that only he can do: change someone’s mind, change our desires, bring unity from strife, and turn hearts to him. These are miracles of grace he does every day! We do not have to resort to our own devices or stray from obeying him to make things work out. Matthew Henry puts it this way: “{God} will wait, that he may do it in the best and fittest time, when it will be most for his glory, when it will come to you with the most pleasing surprise. He will continually follow you with his favours, and not let slip any opportunity of being gracious to you; He will stir up himself to deliver you, will be exalted, that he may appear for you in more than ordinary instances of power and goodness and thus he will be exalted, that is, he will glorify his own name. This is what he aims at in having mercy on his people, all those are blessed who wait for him, who not only wait on him with their prayers, but wait for him with their hopes, who will not take any course to extricate themselves out of their straits, or anticipate their deliverance, but patiently expect God’s appearances for them in his own way and time. Because God is infinitely wise, those are truly happy who refer their cause to him.”
Faith is believing that when you seek God he rewards you, (Hebrews 11:1-2) first with forgiveness of sin, and then with everything we need in this life as a child of God in a fallen world. (Or as an exile in a foreign land.) Daniel says to his friends, “seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that we might not be destroyed.” (2:18) And God helps them. He mercifully tells Daniel what the unreasonable king dreamed last night, and what that dream means for the whole world, even to its end.
What burden does our faithful God, because you are his child in Christ Jesus our Lord, want you to cast on him today, knowing he cares for you? (1 Peter 5:7) He waits to be gracious to you, and exalts himself to show mercy to you.
