"Dare to be a Daniel,
Dare to stand alone!
Dare to have a purpose firm!
Dare to make it known."
-Philip Bliss, 1873

The second stanza of Dare to Be a Daniel begins, "Many mighty men are lost, daring not to stand."  As I stand here at this point of my life, sometimes I feel a bit lost myself.  The song challenges us to take a stand, but first the question must be asked.  "What exactly should we stand for?"

The things in this life that weigh us down and trip us up take away our ability to stand for anything.  How can we make a stand if we are bound to the things of this life anyway?  What ends up dominating our behaviors and attitudes becomes the mundane trivial stuff that the world values.

The world has some great ideas though.  It's much more enticing to think that we can be our own gods then submitting to the will of a God that we don't see and don't fully understand.  Why do you think Adam and Eve ate the fruit?  The serpent offered an alternative rule to God's authority and he's been roaming the earth ever since.

The serpent's rule however comes with a ton of strings attached.  In fact, he ends up suffocating the life out of us.  He robs us of our very souls.  Without God's intervention, our rebellious hearts lead us to our own destruction.

Despite man's attempts to suppress the truth, the truth will ultimately win.  But in the meantime, the serpent roams.  So, we live with all these strings attached.

I had a dream the other night that I was with my family in a house I didn't recognize.  We were all in different rooms and there was a rope tied around all of us.  The rope connected us to each other and went around the house in a circle.  Each of us was trying to get out of the house, but we couldn't undo the rope.  The windows were open and people we knew were coming in and out, acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary.  It seemed as if nobody noticed the ropes or the fact that we were trying to escape them.  In fact, the people treated us as if we were supposed to be tied together and stuck in that house.  When I asked for help, the answers I got were along the lines of either "I can't help you" or "this is your life".

The Daniel in the Bible was not only a guy who stood for something, but he had the wisdom to interpret dreams that nobody else understood.  He trusted God and God used him to do great things.  God even revealed secret things to Daniel.  Through Daniel, God showed His wisdom to be greater than man's.  After all, it is pretty foolish to stand with lions in a den overnight.

Often, standing for God makes us look foolish.  It requires standing firm.  It requires standing alone.  It takes the courage of Daniel.  It's a daring adventure and one where we often find ourselves losing.  After all, Daniel lived in exile.

The first thing that I think of when it comes to daring is dreaming.  Life rarely every turns out as we dream, but we dare to dream anyway.  While standing firm is an act of courage, pursuing something greater takes the courage to risk.  We may see the pursuit of our dreams as taking on great risk, but greater risk is found in losing it all by neglecting God's calling for our lives.  Daniel trusted God at the risk of losing His life and God preserved him in spite of some very hungry lions in need of some fresh meat.

No matter what the odds, we have to take a stand.  We must hold our ground or we will be carried away by the strings that bind us.  There's really only one way to cut the cord.  There's only one friend who can help.  The only friend who can intervene in our lives and set us free is Jesus. 

As Jesus sets us free, we then have the freedom to pursue our dreams and seek God's calling for our lives.  Pursuing God's call is one where we must be willing to risk our lives for Him, just as Daniel did.  I will examine this topic further in the near future.

For now, we must put our hope in Christ alone to cast off the strings that entangle us.  He's already claimed the victory for us with His death and resurrection.  It is in Him that we stand.