Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 62 Persecution. Read Daniel 11:33-35. The Christian life is not an easy life. Over the years, I have heard many people witnessing and sharing with others about the Christian life. It always makes me sad when people who are sharing give someone the impression that all you have to do is come to Jesus, and then all your worries and troubles and problems magically go away. That is not how the Christian life works at all. If anything, coming to Christ means you have more troubles and problems and difficulties. However, having Christ means that we have a purpose that transcends anything else that we…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 62 Leadership changes. Read Daniel 11:5-32. There are a lot of verses that are part of our reading for today. Reading through this account, we see detailed back-and-forth of two major empires. At the time that Daniel was receiving this, he has no idea what this means. However, this is prophecy that was later fulfilled, and we can look back on history and clearly see the Ptolemaic dynasty (Egypt) in the south and the Selucid dynasty (Syria) from the north, they’re fighting during this. During that time frame, Israel was in the middle as they continue to battle one another back and forth. Eventually, the…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 61 The promise of power. Read Daniel 11:1-4. It’s hard to get power and still remain humble. One of the greatest challenges of leadership is recognizing and understanding your place and staying humble to God. Recognizing God’s place in your life is even more challenging when God has allowed you the opportunity to have leadership. Daniel is sharing a prophecy that is going to come to pass, and he explains that a king is going to arise who will not be humble. He will rule with great power. He will do as he pleases. Those in leadership like kings will not acknowledge God and often…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 60 Understanding our place. Read Daniel 10:15-21. We often see a lot of talk about the holiness of God. We understand in our mind that God is holy, but it can be really difficult to truly conceptualize that apart from experiencing the holiness of God. Daniel was in a place where he experienced the holiness of God. As he saw even the smallest glimpse of exactly who God his and how holy he is, his immediate thought was to understand just how unworthy he was. We may think that we are pretty special. We may even come to the place where we feel like we’ve…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 59 The response. Read Daniel 10:10-14. We all want God to respond immediately. We prefer the prayers where we pray, and then 3 seconds later we have our positive response. Even though it doesn’t always work that way, we must understand that God does respond to us, often in ways that we are not expecting. Daniel was not expecting this Messenger to provide a response to a prayer that he had prayed, however, here he stood giving a response. We can confidently know that God hears our prayers. We can be equally confident in knowing that God responds to our prayers. The way he responds…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 58 Alone. Read Daniel 10:7-9. Daniel was in a unique situation. He was traveling during the middle of the day near the river and saw a vision approach him. His companions didn’t see the vision, but they heard the commotion and were afraid. It says that Daniel found himself alone. When we are in leadership positions, there will be times when we will feel completely alone. We may have people around us, but ultimately, there are times when leadership has to make decisions alone. Thankfully, while Daniel may have felt alone in that moment, he was not truly alone. God was still with him. And…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 57 The unexpected visitor. Read Daniel 10:1-6. It’s amazing how we can get accustomed to the routine. We find comfort in the expected. As leaders, that’s no different. We like being able to find comfort in doing the same thing over and over and over again. Daniel had heard and received visions from God in the past. However, that had always been at night, while he was sleeping. This time, he is fully awake and standing outside by the river. All of a sudden, he sees a vision. The people he is with don’t see the actual vision themselves, but they understand something is going…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 56 Insight comes from the Lord. Read Daniel 9:20-27. Have you ever desperately needed or wanted insight and understanding and just couldn’t get it. There are always those things that come up that baffle us completely, and that we don’t understand. It may even be things where there’s a simple solution and we just can’t quite seem to find it. Daniel was sitting in a similar situation. He had been praying and was seeking an answer to the Lord and just didn’t know how God was going to work things out. Daniel didn’t know what to do with it. It was completely beyond his understanding,…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 55 Why do we ask God for things? Read Daniel 9:14-19. So often, we come to God and we make requests. Our prayer time is full of the things that we want to see God do in our lives. This can be anything from healing sicknesses, helping out people, or any number of requests that we come to God with. Why do we come to God with our prayer requests? It has to be for more reasons than just because we know we should. Daniel explains here that the whole reason he is praying is not because he knows that he is worthy. He is…

Leasing Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 54 He told them so. Read Daniel 9:9-14. Most people don’t like hearing, “I told you so.” The idea that someone gave us an advance warning of what would happen that we didn’t pay attention to, and now our experiences and the consequences of really difficult to deal with. Daniel points out that that is exactly what has happened with the children of Israel. God told them what would happen if they didn’t obey. God had them write it down. God made everything very, very clear, and still they did not obey him. As a result, now they are experiencing all of the negative consequences…