SHINE LIKE THE STARS

Those who are wise will shine as bright as the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever. Daniel 12:3

I've been reading the Book of Daniel over the last two months and I finally got to the last chapter today. The first half of the book is the story of Daniel and how useful he gets to the Kings in Babylon. Exciting stuff, stories.

The second half of it are his prophetic dreams and visions. There's interesting too, lots of imagery and sci-fi stuff almost but a bit harder to find as engaging as the stories in the first half. I like the OT. Lots of stories. I like stories.

It was intriguing the things that Daniel was seeing and vaguely knowing that this visions did come through. It would have been so insightful to go through the history of civilizations with the book of Daniel as your guide. But hard work.

I guess I was wrong when I supposed I had less to learn from the second half than the first. God - 1, me - nil.

There's all the stuff I can confirm and learn about how 'though we are in the world, we do not wage war like the world does...' (2 Cor 10:3) our fight is against demonic strongholds, princes of this world and our weapon is prayer. Daniel prayed and this is what he found out, that the answer to his prayers were delayed because there was a prince of the kingdom of Persia who withstood Jesus (a man clothed in linen), that Michael, of of the chief princes aided him so Jesus could answer Daniel's prayer; that the prince of Greece would also come and that Michael was Daniel's prince, in charge of God's people. (Dan 10:12-13, 20-21, 12:1). What we think is happening up there, is real! Jesus, in the appearance of a man, told Daniel so!