At one time or another we’ve probably all experienced what psychologists call the fear of "social exclusion" - the feeling we don’t belong.
Daniel could have had every reason to feel like he didn’t belong. Taken captive as a teenager by an invading king’s armies, he never got to go home again. He was transplanted to a foreign culture where he needed the wisdom to walk the tightrope of remaining faithful to God and helpful to his unrighteous bosses at the same time.
A vintage saint now in his eighties, Daniel survives another regime change in Babylon. The Medes and Persians have taken over and once again Daniel is called upon to adapt. Which goes to show that no matter how old we are we can learn to adjust to new situations with God’s help.
But adaptation does not mean compromise of our convictions. It takes wisdom, to be sure, to know the difference between our traditions and God’s truth. We can afford to bend when it comes to man-made traditions. When it comes to God’s truth however, we cannot yield.
Daniel could learn the language of his captors, he could contribute to their society’s well being, he could even serve as a high-ranking government official. What he couldn’t do was sacrifice his relationship with God for an arbitrary man-made rule that told him he couldn’t pray.
Over twenty-five hundred years later sincere people of God face the same dilemma Daniel faced. We realize we belong to God but we also sense the need for belonging to people around us. We are wired to be a part of a group. As social beings created in God’s image we long for family. We crave social interaction. We want to be a part of what’s going on around us. That’s only natural.
Problems often arise when our need for belonging gets in the way of our allegiance to God. Sometimes, we have to make a choice. Not always, but sometimes. Our loyalty to God must take precedence over our fear of social exclusion.
Daniel’s experience underscores how very important it is to remain true to our core values even when our sense of belonging is being threatened. It teaches us that the greatest sense of belonging comes from being true to what we believe, not compromising those beliefs in order to be accepted by others.
Consider Daniel’s story more closely for INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO BELONG.
The envy of his enemies in the first five verses of chapter six sets the stage for our enlightenment. Why do people have to be envious and jealous of others? Why can’t they realize there is plenty of success to go around for everyone? You succeed at what you’re good at while others succeed at what they’re good at.
One cause of envy and jealousy is the fact that people experience feelings of inadequacy as we discovered last time from Daniel chapter five. People who don’t have a close walk with God often feel inadequate. They mistakenly base their opinion of themselves on arbitrary yardsticks like how much money they make or how good looking they think they are or how good their grades are or how "popular" they are, etc. We were reminded in Daniel chapter five that ONLY GOD can provide true adequacy for any of us because He is the only constant. Our circumstances change, opinions of others change, our looks change, but God remains the same.
When we have a vital relationship with God, our sins, which would make us inadequate, are forgiven, and we base our adequacy on the fact that we are made in God’s image and we are so important that Jesus died for us! Those are the only stable grounds for adequacy. When we experience this relationship with God we become adequate so we’re interested in being "good and faithful" servants of Christ, which is God’s benchmark of "success".
Here’s what we learn:
BELONGING DOES NOT COME FROM BELITTLING OTHERS.
Someone else doesn’t have to be insignificant for us to be important. We don’t have to take someone else down in order to build ourselves up. Just like with adequacy, we don’t have to have more, or do more than someone else does in order to belong. As we learned in Daniel chapter three from the example of Daniel’s friends - when we come to the realization that we belong to God, the successes or threats of others need not faze us. The three Hebrew children did not bow to the idol of the king because they knew that they did not "belong" to the king or his kingdom. They were among the few that realized they belonged to God.
What liberty! God is reinforcing a very important truth here in Daniel’s autobiographical record. Once we are settled in the assurance that we belong to God we don’t have to live a fearful and threatened existence! We don’t have to experience the fear and loathing inside that characterize a person who feels they don’t belong.
Listen to what Stephen R. Covey has to say about this topic in his bestselling book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People".
"The third character trait essential to Win/Win is the Abundance Mentality, the paradigm that there is plenty out there for everybody.
"Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else. The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life.
"People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit - even with those who help in the production. They also have a very hard time being genuinely happy for the successes of other people - even, and sometimes especially, members of their own family or close friends and associates. It’s almost as if something is being taken from them when someone else receives special recognition or windfall gain or has remarkable success or achievement.
"Although they might verbally express happiness for others’ success, inwardly they are eating their hearts out. Their sense of worth comes from being compared, and someone else’s success, to some degree, means their failure. Only so many people can be "A" students; only one person can be "number one." To "win" simply means to "beat"." (Page 219)
He goes on to say many more insightful things but can’t you just see the men who tried to set up Daniel in this description? Daniel’s critics were the ones who did not have a sense of belonging. They viewed Daniel as a threat to their sense of belonging. So they devised a plot to threaten Daniel’s sense of belonging. But their plan backfired, because you can’t make a child of God, who is walking with God, not belong. No one else can make us not belong. We can only do that to ourselves.
Let’s pause for a moment and consider a very important question. Ask yourself: "Is there someone I view as a threat to my security and sense of belonging?"
We don’t have to view anyone that way. If you are a follower of Christ you already belong and you have at your disposal the grace to allow others to belong. Reminds me of the old Bill Gaither song that said, "I am loved, I can risk loving you." That’s the true character of the believer - our love for others and ability to not have our sense of belonging threatened by them is based on the fact that we already belong.
Listen to what the Bible says in Ephesians 1:6, New Living Translation: "So we can praise God for the wonderful kindness He has poured out on us because WE BELONG to his dearly loved Son."
We belong! Everyone say that together with me. "We belong!" Say it this way, "I belong."
So we don’t have to belittle others in a futile attempt to make ourselves belong. That kind of stuff will only backfire on us like it did on Daniel’s critics.
Here’s another INSTRUCTION ON BELONGING from Daniel chapter six.
When it comes to making right choices about belonging, OUR HABITS MAKE US OR BREAK US.
Look at verses six through ten of Daniel six. Daniel remained constant in his prayer habit even when the consequences of doing so threatened his belonging to the society in which he lived. Three times a day he went to his window, facing Jerusalem, and communed with God. How could he have been so willing to go on praying when he knew it meant being thrown to the lions?
It was his habit. It was something he routinely did because it was important.
When it comes to belonging, we will find ourselves more apt to cave in to the demands of others if we have failed to adopt good spiritual habits in our life.
Habits are difficult to break. We know this from the bad habits we’ve had to overcome in our lives. We can use this principle to our positive advantage. If we begin and maintain good habits in our lives, we will be less likely to compromise our core values and beliefs when our sense of belonging is threatened.
We visited our son last week and when I walked into his study at the church where he serves as youth and worship pastor I noticed a sign on his wall. It was an acrostic from the word "habits". It came from the book, "Purpose Driven Youth Ministry." The youth pastor in California who wrote the book wanted his youth to have the following habits instilled in their lives by the time they left his youth ministry.
Hang time with God.
Accountability with another believer.
Bible memorization.
Involvement in the church body.
Tithing commitment.
Study scripture.
That’s a great set of habits. If and when a person develops those habits they will be more likely to make good decisions when their sense of belonging is threatened. They won’t feel like they have to take a certain job because of the money that it offers when God wants them to do something else. They won’t feel like they will belong only if they’re good looking or drive a certain kind of car. They will possess a God-centered set of values built on a foundation of good habits. Their life will have purpose. They will belong.
What habits are you developing in yourself and in your children? Our habits will determine our sense of belonging. Their habits will determine their sense of belonging. You want your kids to belong? Instill good habits within them. Not just brushing their teeth habits, but habits like giving regularly to God’s work, praying for people who don’t yet know Jesus, helping others, etc.
Their godly habits will come to their rescue when the heat is on. It will be more difficult for them to be dissuaded from the truth if they are habitually grounded in the truth.
So let’s review. #1, Belonging doesn’t come from belittling others, and #2, Our habits will make us or break us when it comes to belonging. One more.
In the closing verses of this story, verses 11-28, we receive yet another great precept for belonging.
WE WON’T REALLY BELONG UNTIL WE ARE WILLING TO SACRIFICE BELONGING.
Yes, it is a paradox. We must be willing to give up the approval of our peers for the approval of our Sovereign God if need be.
Who did the rulers respect? Who did they want in the administration, handling the affairs of state? They didn’t want the tattle-tales. They threw them in the lion’s den. It was Daniel they wanted - the man who belonged to God. They wanted the man who would rather face lions than quit praying to God!
Daniel’s miraculous preservation in the den of lions is marvelous. But the real story is the fact that the king, Cyrus, and his chief administrator, Darius, chose this Hebrew to help them rule!
We will be chosen for assimilation into the right groups on the basis of our character and behavior. If a group does not choose its members on this basis it is not a group fit to belong to.
It’s Daniel chapter one all over again. When Daniel first arrived in Babylon he "purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself." (Daniel 1:8) Why did Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzer promote him? (Chapters 1-2, 4-5) Why did Cyrus and Darius end up doing the same? How could Daniel "belong" in the very place you would have expected him to be ostracized? It was because he was a man of courage, conviction, and a great sense of purpose and wisdom. But above all that he was a man who knew he belonged to God!
Do you want to belong? Do you fear not belonging? then give yourself to God ureservedly and leave the rest to Him.
Daniel’s victory in the lion’s den reminds us that a lion confronts us also. The Bible compares the devil to a roaring lion who is seeking to devour each one of us. (1 Peter 5:8) The plot to make us compromise our convictions in order to make us think we will belong is one of his chief snares.
Now a lion is powerful but Jesus is all-powerful. Like the story of the lion who went walking through the jungle one day and came up to a little monkey and said, "Rrroar! Who is the king of the jungle?" And the monkey trembled and said, "You are, O mighty lion."
The lion shook the dust off his mane and kept walking until he came to a zebra and he said, "Rrroar! Who is the king of the jungle?" The zebra replied, "You are, O mighty lion."
Then he walked up to a big bull elephant. He looked up and he said, "Rrroar! Who is the king of the jungle?" The elephant looked down at the lion, wrapped his trunk around the lion, slung him over his head, and threw him up against a tree. The lion slid down the tree and landed at the roots. He looked up at the big bull elephant and he said, "Well, just because you don’t know the answer, you don’t have to be sore about it!"
Satan may be a lion, but Jesus is the bull elephant! Jesus is the king of the jungle.
Our adversary will roar at us from time to time. Often he will use the threat that we won’t belong if we don’t cave in to peer pressure. But we can resist the devil and he will flee. But let us first remember the Bible says we must submit ourselves to God.
James 4:7 - "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
Daniel belonged because he submitted his life to God.
That will work for us as well.
