Priorities; a lesson from Daniel and The Holy Men.

Some friends of mine have a wonderful little band called The Holy Men and the majority of their songs are drawn right from the book of Daniel. Daniel is a very interesting book, I haven't studied it in depth yet but from what I know, Christians consider it a book of prophecy, the Jews considered it as part of the Writings rather than prophecy. The genre of the book is apocalyptic so it uses some wonderful symbolism and crazy mythological beasts in the story telling. The thing that gets me excited about this book however is the main characters that can be safely classified as Holy Men. Now, I don't think my friends realized how apt a name their band has, especially considering their source material, but I'll chalk it up to the Spirit and leave it at that.

The setting of the book is in Babylon, basically, at least for Jews, the most worldly, profane (redundant I know) place ever (like, this place ranked right up there with Egypt on the Jewish no-fly zone list). A little background, the people of Israel had been given the Torah that told them how to live in covenant with Yahweh, basically it said, if you want to be my people act like this, not like all these other pagan nations. The Israelites liked the pagan ways however, hey, they were more fun, and everyone was doing it, so Yahweh gave them over (after repeated attempts to get them on the straight and narrow) to the desires of their hearts. He sent them to Babylon, the place where all the lusts of the sinful nature could be satisfied in full. This place had it all, money, great food, women, awesome architecture, power, prestige, etc etc. The Scriptures speak often of the remnant of the faithful, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and posit that there were quite a few Jews who enjoyed this new found "freedom" from the Torah and went to town on their lusts (I hate proof-texters but here I go, Daniel 1:3-5, 15).

There were some men however (and yes ladies, I'm sure there were some women, they just don't get mentioned in Daniel; Esther for example, although that comes a bit later after the Persians take over...) who loved Yahweh and desired to continue to be faithful to his ways. Here is where I finally get to the point of my post, these Holy Men, made Yahweh a PRIORITY in their lives. In fact, he came first before all else, including jobs, social status, wealth etc. A couple of famous stories are of course Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and their fiery exploits, and Daniel and the Den of Lions. These men in these stories decided to put Yahweh first when there very lives were on the line, they were offered the world but chose the Lord and obedience to Him over that.

Today, even among Christians, we are taught to attain security first then figure out God stuff wherever we can fit it in. Get a good paying job, a house, a car, a family and then take it all to church and Christianize it. How contrary to pretty much everything the Bible teaches, and especially in light of this little excursion into the Book of Daniel. I am as guilty of this as the next person, even this summer I have turned down different opportunities because "I need to make money for school". This really hit home the other day in the tractor as I was trying to organize a Bible Study, something my friends and I have been trying to get going since we got home from school in May... (yes I know it's mid-July) And yet again, everyone was busy. Now I'm not condemning anyone for being busy, I'm just as guilty, but I think we need a major paradigm shift. Christ comes first in all that we do, and I mean that in the most literal way possible. Praying, reading our Bibles, tithing, serving, worshiping, ministering, all of these things need to take the highest positions in our lives, for Christ did say "Seek ye first the Kingdom and all these things shall be added to you as well" which means all of those issues of financial security, food, clothing, shelter, will be dealt with quite handily. Look at Daniel, he prayed every day, it became illegal to do so, he continued, he was thrown to the lions, God rescued him and raised him up to an exalted position in the empire. Notice the difference, Daniel didn't throw himself into his career and ask God for some help up along the way, he threw himself after God and was sustained through the bad times and blessed in the good times.

Now I don't have any suggestions for what that shift in priorities is going to look like for you readers, I know what changes I need to make, but putting God first is that subtle shift that is a necessary requirement to becoming Holy Men (and Women).