He said yes to being among people who were nothing like him. He said yes to the government, yes to learning. Light when the voice of Jesus asks Saul-turned-Paul, Why do you persecute meDaniel and his pals were up against an interesting dilemma: How did they live under the rule of the king of their country while still honoring the King of their hearts? We could dig into Daniel for chapters upon chapters, but there are just a few things I want us to grab from this short passage.What we see was that Daniel embodied the clichéd but helpful, “Be in the world but not of the world.” He said yes to going where he was taken. But he was born into a remarkable cultural battle—a time when God’s people were in the midst of a fight between their worldly identities and their kingdom identities, much like the world many of us found ourselves born into—like we’re seeing our kids born into as well.My father was an anthropologist who studied Indian culture at Morongo. Daniel was a healthy, strong kid who didn’t do anything to land himself in hot water, except maybe be born a little wiser and taller than other kids. Scholars estimate that he and his friends were in their early teenage years.
It’s harder to say yes to being in the world while saying no to being defiled by it at the same time.What does it look like to do this in your life? Maybe it means being in the playgroup of moms who don’t know Jesus but not laughing at the unkind jokes or leading the pack demeaning other women and men. It’s a simple idea, but I believe we should keep saying simple things until we actually do them. God’s way for us seems a lot simpler: be in the world, not judging it, but don’t become like it either. We seem to be okay with one or the other: being completely in the world and just like it or being completely outside of it and only interested in judging it. It seems simple on paper, but it’s much tougher to live out. Daniel said yes to being in the world.If I’m being honest, this is where the wheels get shaky for the women (and men) of God.
It might mean watching our modern-day celebrities and praying for them instead of bashing them, judging them, and only using their lives as entertainment—delighting in their downfalls or puffing ourselves up with pride as if we’re better than they are.I believe it’s time for the women (and men) of God to return to the simple yes and no—yes to being with the world, no to joining in its sin. It might mean saying yes to being in the book club and no to silently nodding when less-than-true things are being shared at club meetings. Saying yes to the world and no to compromising ourselves might mean saying yes to the extended family dinner and no to the temptation to enter into the family conflict that ultimately isn’t going to glorify God. Or are we surrounded only by other believers in a safety bubble?It might mean holding off on the ranting Facebook posts, even when we’re right, simply because they’d alienate and hurt the people God sent us to love and share the light with. For some of us, it might mean evaluating our rhythms and our hours to see if we’re spending time in the wider world.
Dance, Stand, Run charts her discovery that holiness was never meant to be a shaming reminder of what we “should” be doing, but rather a profound privilege of becoming more like Christ. That’s where holiness comes in.Beloved writer, speaker, and bestselling coauthor of Wild and Free, Jess Connolly will be the first to admit that not long ago, like many women, she grasped grace but she had forgotten holiness. But it’s not cheap—true grace compels us to change. Click here to learn more about this title.Grace is always good news. As we look at Daniel’s story and our own lives, however, it seems clear that there is an open invitation to dance, stand, and run by saying yes to being with people and saying no to compromising ourselves in the midst of it all.Adapted from Dance, Stand, Run: The God-Inspired Moves of a Woman on Holy Ground by Jess Connolly. But our God is not a God of confusion, and He’s given us the gift of the Holy Spirit to continually increase our capacity to discern what it looks like to live in the world without being exactly like it.
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