Day 63
Daniel 1-12
I would love to be Daniel. Would love the ability to interpret dreams. To have such insight. But that's not the way it works, as is shared in Daniel 2:26 when the king asked Daniel, "Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?" Daniel replied, "no wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries...."
I have many mysteries I need revealed. Why such disappointment in things, such hardship, such unfairness. Such suffering in my son's seizures.
The book of Daniel partly answers that with sovereignty. Yahweh is a sovereign God. He is able to deliver us from anything, yet at times for reasons only HE knows, He chooses not to. And I just need to be humbled by that. How God is sovereign over kings, nations, empires, and yes, even autism. He is in control and there is purpose in all things He does, or doesn't do. In the book of Daniel that kingdom they were waiting for would take longer than expected. Kinda like the autism recovery and seizure healing that I have been waiting for for over a decade now. But in the meantime we must live out our faith, or HOPEISM, in the midst of an unbelieving world, trusting in God for deliverance and protection. For me in the case of "Life with Autism" -- I must live out my HOPEISM in the midst of defeat after defeat, setback after setback...... Trusting God for deliverance and protection.
I am encouraged by what Daniel 2:20 says:
"Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him....."
He is Sovereign...
In Daniel 6:26 --
"For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions."
God's sovereignty is such that He can, will, often does, rescue me and my son, as He rescued Daniel from the den of lions.
I love the story here in Daniel about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace... In Daniel 3:17 it says, "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it... But even if he does not...we will not serve your gods."
They were saved by God. In a blazing furnace and not a singed hair on their head. My son was helping a widow in our church one summer. Mowing and cutting down brush and limbs. He was doing his best as a teenager to serve in a way that he could. He had all that brush and grass and stumps and limbs in a huge pile to burn. He poured way too much gas on the pile and as he lit it, the wind picked up and a huge heat bubble engulfed him. From in the house, the widow said it sounded like a bomb was dropped in her yard. The heat in his face scared our son, rightly so, and when he came home and I saw his red face we immediately went to the Emergency Room. I was afraid blisters would form, scars, disfiguration, etc. But he checked out fine. Some singed hairs, but no blisters, no burns, no scars. Nothing. Like with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, -- there was most certainly an angel in that brush pile shielding him from the brunt of that heat bubble. The Sovereign God that could have allowed for him to be burned, had rescued and saved him. Performed signs and wonders for him to stand in amazement of that day.
I will always remember that miracle.
There are many times I've felt scorched by my son's seizures. Burned by autism. But that day when my son survived such an explosion, walking through the fiery furnace with not a burn, reminds me that there have been many more days that I haven't been burned. Many more times my son wasn't hurt by seizure falls than the times he was.
This book reminds me that obedience is rewarded. And even in the times it seems it isn't, I'll still be obedient anyway.......
I'll still obediently serve the Sovereign Savior who Saves.
There is such HOPEISM in that...
