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It's not the muppet show



Daniel 2:14

Then Daniel replied with prudence and discretion to Arioch, the captain of the king's guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon. 

Thought for the day – Rational faith

One of my favourite kid’s programs is the Muppets. I’m a huge Kermit fan. And one of the things I love about the program is the chaos. I think it’s avery good reflection of my own life at times. Chaotic but amazing. But I digress. The reason I mention it is because as I was reading today’s chapter about Nebuchadnezzar’s completely irrational request to his advisors and how God intervened with Daniel, I had an image in my head of all the royal advisors and sorcerers running around panicking, just like an episode of the muppets. And yet in the midst of the chaos and panic Daniel is calm and measured. We read that he replies with prudence and discretion. Cool as a cucumber under pressure. How many of us can claim the same?

Granted we’re not all given the gift of interpretation of dreams, but it seems Daniel didn’t until he asked for it. He asked Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah to seek mercy from God in heave. So Daniel had a plan and acted on it with faith that God was going to get them through this. And as I think about this, I’m struck by Daniel’s level of faith. I thought I knew the passage well but this little nugget stood out for me. Daniel acted rationally and stepped out in faith. Not something we often see hand in hand; rationality and faith. They are not opposites. Faith is evidence of things unseen and a hope in things to come according to Hebrews. Maybe we can step out more in faith when we not running around like a muppet set on fire by pyrotechnics, when we’re a little more calm and rational. When we’re a little more prudent and have a little more discretion.


This blog post is part of the Walking the Way Podcast series. All views expressed in this blog post are those of the author. This blog post is freely available under Creative Commons License with Attribution-ShareAlike, allowing users to share it in other mediums/formats and adapt/translate the content as long as an attribution link, indication of changes, and the same Creative Commons License applies to that material.

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