How the Book of Daniel Changed My Life
7:14:00 AM
In May of 2014 - my life took a drastic turn. My wife Cara and I took our twin babies, Emerson and Charlotte, to Florida for our first vacation since we had the kids in 2011. Our kids had just turned 3 years old and they were so excited to see the beach and the ocean for the very first time. Getting up at the crack of dawn has become the norm in our household (at least for me), and so it was on vacation as well. This isn't a bad thing (in my opinion), I love getting up early in the morning. Mostly I like to read in the morning when it's quiet before the day begins. And so reading would prove to change my life as a 32 year old.
After hours of playing on the beach and swimming with the kids in the morning, naps were just naturally a part of the rhythm. Three hour naps to be exact. This gave time for Cara and I to connect, talk and read books together that would prove to forever change the direction of our family. I had become fascinated with the book of Daniel in the Hebrew scriptures of the Bible (that's the Old Testament). I had never read through this particular book in its entirety, but I felt drawn to it. I didn't even have to read deep into the book before I came across these verses in chapter 1:
12 “Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king's food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.” 14 So he listened to them in this matter, and tested them for ten days. 15 At the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king's food. 16 So the steward took away their food and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.
Really!? ONLY vegetables?
This portion of the chapter stuck with me until after our vacation was over. Eating greasy foods and unhealthy for eight days straight really started to affect how we felt. And it wasn't healthy. Cara and I decided to try the plan Daniel suggested to the servants of Babylon. Literally to only eat fruits and vegetables for a few days to cleanse our bodies of everything we had consumed on vacation. A few days turned into a few weeks, which turned into a few months. Yep, we literally ate "vegan" for months. The first two weeks were hell. Seriously. I had debilitating headaches (probably coming down from a sugar high) and hunger pains. We were determined to push through, and we made it.
Not only did we start feeling better - we slept better, looked better and lost weight. Most importantly, we grew spiritually. Our prayer life changed. We felt closer to God. It was one of the best experiences we had ever experienced.
This portion of the chapter stuck with me until after our vacation was over. Eating greasy foods and unhealthy for eight days straight really started to affect how we felt. And it wasn't healthy. Cara and I decided to try the plan Daniel suggested to the servants of Babylon. Literally to only eat fruits and vegetables for a few days to cleanse our bodies of everything we had consumed on vacation. A few days turned into a few weeks, which turned into a few months. Yep, we literally ate "vegan" for months. The first two weeks were hell. Seriously. I had debilitating headaches (probably coming down from a sugar high) and hunger pains. We were determined to push through, and we made it.
Not only did we start feeling better - we slept better, looked better and lost weight. Most importantly, we grew spiritually. Our prayer life changed. We felt closer to God. It was one of the best experiences we had ever experienced.
After three months of this diet, we eventually fell off of the bandwagon and went back to our normal diet - meat, dairy, and more sweets. The stuff we loved to eat and had missed. After months of returning to this style of eating, we realized that we felt bad again, were unhealthy, and spiritually not growing like we were before. Something needed to change. We needed to return to this way of living - probably permanently.
All of this change in our eating habits opened up God to speak to us about finances and homeschooling our kids. Radical - I know. But it's the truth. In order for this to happen, we need to be out of debt and have Cara be home from work to be with the kids full time. In order for this to happen, we would need to live unlike the "normal" American family - and we couldn't do it without God's help. We had to say goodbye to the American dream of consumerism.
This meant we would cancel cable, cancel our landline, sell my guitar amp, and even sell one of our cars! Crazy right? What middle class American family of four only has one car? This was all confirmed through prayer and feeling like this is what God was asking us to do.
Since we have started this new way of living and eating again - we have slept better, felt better and our prayer life and marriage has escalated. We have seen God move in really powerful ways. Cara was able to go from full time to part time, my work schedule has become increasingly flexible, and we have connected with an incredible small group who prays with us, and loves us. I'm sure I am missing countless other ways God has been moving in this journey - but there is one more story to share.
When we joined our small group, there was a particular couple (Matt and Traci) who would sacrifice so much for Cara and I. Matt learned months earlier that he would need to transfer to Tuscon, AZ for his job. Only for a few years (but we are praying it's much shorter than that!). Because he was moving his family out West, he felt like God was calling him and his family to gift us their car. Who does stuff like this? When Matt and Traci shared this insight with us - we were literally speechless and incredibly grateful. We still are. This is not normal stuff that happens to people. Nobody does stuff like this in the Kingdom of the world. But in the Kingdom of God, this is the stuff that happens. Because of this incredible gift, we cannot thank Matt and Traci enough - and thank God for working in our lives - when so much of the time we don't "deserve" it. It's a lesson we have to learn in receiving and a lesson on grace. We cannot get in that car without thinking of the sacrifice Matt and Traci made. It motivates us to pray for them and their family every single day.
So what is next? Who knows. We still desire to pray more, be more diligent and mindful of our spending habits, not conforming to the pattern of this world, and listening for God's voice in all of this. The story continues...
BT
(The artwork is Daniel in the Lions' Den by Sir Peter Paul Rubens.)
This meant we would cancel cable, cancel our landline, sell my guitar amp, and even sell one of our cars! Crazy right? What middle class American family of four only has one car? This was all confirmed through prayer and feeling like this is what God was asking us to do.
Since we have started this new way of living and eating again - we have slept better, felt better and our prayer life and marriage has escalated. We have seen God move in really powerful ways. Cara was able to go from full time to part time, my work schedule has become increasingly flexible, and we have connected with an incredible small group who prays with us, and loves us. I'm sure I am missing countless other ways God has been moving in this journey - but there is one more story to share.
When we joined our small group, there was a particular couple (Matt and Traci) who would sacrifice so much for Cara and I. Matt learned months earlier that he would need to transfer to Tuscon, AZ for his job. Only for a few years (but we are praying it's much shorter than that!). Because he was moving his family out West, he felt like God was calling him and his family to gift us their car. Who does stuff like this? When Matt and Traci shared this insight with us - we were literally speechless and incredibly grateful. We still are. This is not normal stuff that happens to people. Nobody does stuff like this in the Kingdom of the world. But in the Kingdom of God, this is the stuff that happens. Because of this incredible gift, we cannot thank Matt and Traci enough - and thank God for working in our lives - when so much of the time we don't "deserve" it. It's a lesson we have to learn in receiving and a lesson on grace. We cannot get in that car without thinking of the sacrifice Matt and Traci made. It motivates us to pray for them and their family every single day.
So what is next? Who knows. We still desire to pray more, be more diligent and mindful of our spending habits, not conforming to the pattern of this world, and listening for God's voice in all of this. The story continues...
BT
(The artwork is Daniel in the Lions' Den by Sir Peter Paul Rubens.)
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