Hosea 3

Summary: Acting on God's directions, Hosea pays his wife's dowry to stop her from having to do her job (again, she's a prostitute). He explains they are acting out how God loves His people, even when they seem beyond saving.

Response: Hosea's wife probably knows no other business. I doubt she would necessarily want to stop, and I'm almost certain she didn't understand the speech her weird husband gave to her. And yet, I often feel the same way about God. I'm sure He has great plans for me, but I go on doing my own. Lord, help me to understand Your ways.

Hosea 2

Summary: In two parts, Hosea relates God's message to His people. He must punish them for their sins, as they worship other gods as if His people were cheating on Him. But He will call them back and make the relationship whole again.

Response: I know God is perfect, and that He does what He does out of love. I'm just saying, if a person did this kind of stuff to his wife (public humiliation and forced entrapment until they come back), he'd be arrested. God, help me to understand Your ways and never to put myself in Your place.

Hosea 1

Summary: God speaks to a prophet, Hosea, who is in the northern kingdom of Israel before it and the southern kingdom, Judah, also fall. God has Hosea marry a prostitute, naming children she has through her business to send messages to the northern kingdom, things like "your military power is gone" and "I give you no pity" and even "you are not my people."

Response: To be fair, Israel had fallen, and hard. But God does promise to redeem them. No matter how bad I've been, God will redeem me when I turn back to Him.

Daniel 12

Summary: Daniel's vision concentrates on what will happen to God's people in the midst of all this end times talk; in short, the good get rewarded, the bad keep on being bad, and the whole affair is recommended to be sealed away.

Response: I do my best to avoid eschatology, that is, the study of the future, especially those trying to find the exact time of any return of God/Jesus to earth, any rapture or judgement. For one, I keep getting warnings not to, like Jesus himself saying no one knows the day or hour, or here, where the angels say to just leave the matter alone. Then there's the part where it shouldn't really change anything for me. I should do good in the world regardless of how soon or far away the end is.

Daniel 11

Summary: The angel continues giving Daniel a prophecy, one very long and detailed, concerning world events.

Response: And I'm not sure it was worth it? I mean, that many events that far ahead of time is hard to grasp, at least for me without proper nouns. It just makes humanity at that point sound trivial and monotonous. And that might be the point? I dunno.

Daniel 10

Summary: Daniel has yet another vision. In this one, he is terrified at the presence of what is more or less an angel. The angel tries to comfort Daniel, but needs the help of another to even get him into his feet to listen. The angels are in spiritual battle with Daniel's king, and are on Israel's side.

Response: One thing I've done is help read teen-made fiction during a church-based talent competition. Some of it is in the usual YA novel vein, where a powerful being comes and says he's on the side of good, against evil, and only the protagonist is strong enough to see/care/help. That's what I feel this chapter reads like. I'm fairly sure Daniel and the angel won't go to the mall next, but if you had this writing prompt today, I feel like that's where it'd go.

Daniel 9

Summary: Daniel prays to God, confessing the nation's sin earnestly and thoroughly. An angel appears to update him on God's plan for Jerusalem: it will be rebuilt, but soon enough, it will be demolished again.

Response: I suppose I can relate. I've sinned, like a bunch. God, even past my sarcasm, you know I have. Forgive me, that I might have an end to it.

Daniel 8

Summary: Daniel gets another crazy vision. In this one, a ram and a goat each take turns ruling by force until their horns take over for them. An angel appears and explains to Daniel that these represent various empires that will rise and fall.

Response: I appreciate the angel's advice to seal this vision away. Sometimes, I feel better trusting God with what will happen than trying to force current events into the templates of scripture. Would that I could have that trust all the time!

Daniel 7

Summary: Backing up a bit, we hear a vision and explanation given directly to Daniel during the second king's reign. He sees four beasts, each very odd but large and powerful, take turns ruling and causing destruction. The fourth beast is interrupted by a figure called the Ancient of Days, who instead puts another, the son of man, in charge. Daniel is shown that four empires will rise and fall before God's kingdom will begin.

Response: One, Daniel sees all this, becomes visibly shaken, but then tries to keep the matter to himself. I find it hard to believe he could walk around with a crazy pale face and nobody would call him out on it. I wonder how often I've tried to hide something troubling my spirit with similar results.

Two, yes, I get it, it's Messianic prophecy (that the son of man is the guy who will save everybody, who Christians like me believe is Jesus). But we know from other spots in scripture that this is a very different kingdom. Unlike the empires, who rule with teeth and claws (i.e. their armies and laws), Jesus can be talked to like a person, and rules by becoming a servant.

Daniel 6

Summary: Hey, you probably know this one, too. Daniel is now one of several seconds-in-command to Nebuchadnezzar's grandson, Darius. He is so popular and effective in that role that Darius wants to make him ruler of all but himself. The other leaders are less than happy with this, and trick Darius into signing an unchanging decree calling for a full month of praying only to him.

Daniel can't do that; he prays to God, as expected, and is captured and brought before Darius. The other leaders remind the king that he can't change the law, so Daniel must go to the lions' den. Darius tries to think of loopholes and is visibly shaken, unable to eat, distract himself, or sleep.

Darius wakes as early as he can, calling out to Daniel. He's okay! But the king is rather put out. He orders the conspirators thrown in the lions' den and their families. Chomp. Then we move into Darius's successor, Cyrus.

Response: A bit more wrinkles than the Veggietales version, which is to be expected. What I didn't expect is how badly this weighed on Darius. And the retribution felt a little over the top, but this is a few thousand years old, so I might let it slide for now.

Daniel 5

Summary: We get all of one story from the king's son, Belshazzar. He gets so drunk at a party one night that he starts bringing out the fancy cups--in this case, the holy relics from the Jerusalem Temple. God, being none too pleased, sends the new king a message that Daniel is able to interpret. Daniel gets a small reward right away which is good, because the king is killed that night.

Response: First, I thought it hilarious that the queen mother more or less yells down the basement steps at the king to pipe down before telling him how to fix his problem. But, though he's in no position to do otherwise, Daniel doesn't make a judgement call on the king's blasphemy; he lets God's message do that for him. I kind of like this prophet.

Daniel 4

Summary: Largely from the king's point of view, he has another dream and, again, only Daniel is able to solve it. A tree so big you can see it from anywhere is him, the king, but it gets extremely cut back as a warning that, should the king get full of himself, he'll lose his mind for a few years. Even with the warning, it happens anyway, but for right this second, he seems to have learned his lesson.

Response: "[....God] does as he wishes with the army of heaven and with those who inhabit the earth. No one slaps his hand and says to him, ‘What have you done?’"
Daniel 4:35 NET

I have had pause this week to wonder if I'm in the right place, doing the right thing. But God has seen fit to give me encouragement after encouragement that, even though it's hard, it's not insurmountable.

Daniel 3

Summary: Okay, you've probably heard this one. The king builds himself a huge statue and decrees that, when music plays, that everyone bows to it and worships him. He receives word that Daniel's three friends are not doing so. After confronting them and confirming their nonconformity, he has them tossed into a big furnace. But they don't die; they don't even smell smoky when the king tells them to come out. So the king instead proclaims that no one is to defile God's name.

Response: I almost see this as mostly in Nebuchadnezzar's point of view, as the little cogs of his bureaucracy tick away until someone tells him 'no' and isn't even polite enough to die from the punishment. But he sees firsthand what God can do for those He loves, and has a change of heart, which is great.

Daniel 2

Summary: Babylon's king, Nebuchadnezzar, is beyond sleepless due to a dream/vision/nightmare. He puts out an unusual if not impossible request: his wise men, magicians, and astrologers can tell him his own dream (as well as what it means) or be put to death en masse. The group is, of course, unable to do that and are so desperate, they call on their hated enemy, Daniel.

Daniel asks his three friends to pray for him as he asks for an audience with the king. In the night between, God reveals both the dream and its interpretation to Daniel, who praises God as he awakes.

In the king's chamber, Daniel relays what God has revealed to him: a vision of a giant statue, with a gold head and lesser materials below crumbling to dust at the feet of a rock that grows into a mountain. The head, Daniel explains, is the king, and the body is all who will rule after him, until the rock comes, a symbol of a nation that is eternal. The king thanks Daniel and his God, showering him with gifts and making him more or less second in command.

Response: First off, I wonder how much of these decisions the king made due to lack of sleep. Nothing further there, just curious.

Also, I admire that Daniel went to bat for his enemies (who would betray him and his friends, and he probably knows that). It's tough enough to be benign and to serve one's own interests or to protect himself and his friends, but he puts that all on the line for people that normally want him gone.

Daniel 1

Summary: God's chosen people, Judah, are allowed by God to be besieged and eventually captured and assimilated by Babylon (or the Sumerians, whichever you'd prefer). Daniel and the friends are among those who were captured; they are considered pretty and smart enough to be trained for service physically in front of the king.

Part of this training includes getting accustomed to the king's feast, but Daniel leads a protest against it, saying it goes against God's law. His supervisors put him to the test, giving him only veggies and water; and after only ten days, he already looks so much better than the others. He and the three friends turn out to be smarter than the others, too, and not only join the king's court, but become more accurate and useful than the usual star-watchers and magicians. [I'm sure nothing bad could ever befall these guys. Nope.]

Response: Eat your veggies? But seriously. I'm not one of those who will say that Christianity is "under attack" because people are deciding to not go to church. We are not in exile; we are not under siege: we have been in power for quite some time and have possibly been corrupted by it. I worry that the American church (and by extension, my church and me) is represented in the story by the 'other' contestants, happy to just eat whatever is given (media comes to mind). Just ten days could change someone that much. I believe it.

Hey, I'm back. Not that anyone reads, but I'm here. Trying for M-F again, this time apparently through the prophets that have stories. Might get to a gospel by Christmas, who knows.