Kristi Burchfiel

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 16 The bigger picture. Read Daniel 3:8-12. I’ve read this story numerous times and seen this depicted in lots of children’s Bibles and children’s stories, but I never really noticed these verses until today. So often we’re taught that this whole story is about 3 men who stood up to the king. They refused to bow down to him and would worship God alone, and that is completely true. However, there is an additional aspect of this that I hadn’t noticed before. These men were set up because they were Jews. This was a hate crime that was initiated because the other wise men that…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 15 Follow the crowd. Read Daniel 3:4-7. It can be really easy to follow along through the crowd. There’s a lot less thought that has to go into our actions, and there’s not nearly as much pressure when you just do whatever around you does. However, often we find ourselves getting into trouble when we just blindly go along with the crowd. These people were told that they should bow down to this giant statue, and so everyone did. There wasn’t anything mentioned about people refusing to do this. We also get the idea that this wouldn’t have been that uncommon. A lot of countries…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 14 How quickly we forget. Read Daniel 3:1-3. How good of a memory do we have? How long do we remember the things that God has done for us? I don’t know how much time has passed between chapter 2 and chapter 3, but we ended chapter 2 with the king bowing down and worshipping the one true God. Then, we move forward in chapter 3 with the king building a giant idol of himself and asking people to worship him. When God has done something amazing and revealed himself in a tremendous way, how long does that stay with us? I’ve certainly been impacted…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 13 The reward for faithfulness. Read Daniel 2:48-49. As we close out this incredible chapter, we see a very interesting statement, that if we’re not careful, we’ll misunderstand. Having worked for much of my life in the business world, I’ve seen people get promotions and move through the ranks all because they were friends with people or networked with the right people. We see all the time that favors seem to be passed around and bestowed on those just because they are friends of the person in charge. At first glance, that almost seems like what is happening here. The king is so overjoyed and…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 12 Recognition. Read Daniel 2:46-47 Daniel finally finishes telling the king what his dream was and the interpretation. The king is in shock. He immediately has to recognize that Daniel’s God is the one and true God. I almost wonder if perhaps the king was trying to weed out and replace all his wise men by setting a task that he was so sure they would fail at. The beginning of the chapter mentioned that this was only the second year of his reign, so it’s certainly a possibility that he was using this as a tactic to make replacements in a politically strategic way.…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 11 The everlasting kingdom. Read Daniel 2:44-45. God shares the message of Jesus at every opportunity, and so should we. As Daniel finishes up his interpretation of the dream that the king had, we see the foreshadowing of the coming of Christ. Daniel explains the kingdoms that are going to come after the current one. These will be the different rulers and empires that will be over the land. God then shares that there will be a kingdom that will be established that wasn’t created by man and that is going to be greater than every single kingdom. God was sharing the message of the…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 10 Giving credit, part 2. Read Daniel 2:29-43. Do you ever have to repeat yourself? As a parent, I know I’ve said the same thing to my kids multiple times. There have been moments I have been tempted to record myself saying those things so that I could just play them back each time they needed to be told. While repeating things can sometimes be really challenging, we also tend to repeat things that we want to emphasize or that we really enjoy. I also tell my kids that I love them a lot and I’ve never thought of that as a negative. Repeating things…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 9 Give credit appropriately. Read Daniel 2:24-28. As a leader, we must be diligent to ensure that we give the proper credit to those who have provided the ideas. I have been part of multiple situations where I wanted leaders take credit for the ideas or work of someone else. Instead, leaders should be the first in line to give credit to the appropriate people. Daniel has spent time in prayer and God has revealed the answer and the response needed. But, instead of going to the king and claiming to be the one who has the answer, Daniel make sure that the king and…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 8 Praise. Read Daniel 2:19-23. Daniel does exactly what he says he’s going to do. He and all of his friends go and pray to God that God will reveal the answer and give them a way out of the situation they have found themselves in. God does just that. Overnight, God reveals to Daniel exactly what he needs to know to be able to appease the king. When Daniel wakes up and realizes this, he doesn’t jump up and run to the king first. Instead, he takes time and praises God. This opportunity to praise God is exactly what we miss a lot of…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 7 Turn to God. Read Daniel 2:17-18. Daniel asked for extra time and the king granted that to him. So how did Daniel use that time? He went straight to his friends and told everybody that they needed to stop everything and spend time in prayer. They prayed to God. Daniel realized that he had a leader that was being unrealistic with expectations. What the leader was asking for could not be accomplished in any other way except through God. As Daniel realized that, he went straight to the only person who could solve the issue in the first place. Daniel knew that if God…