Daniel, Lions & Scooby Doo

This message explores the familiar story of Daniel and the lion’s den to reveal how extraordinary faith is often built through ordinary daily disciplines. Daniel had developed a remarkable reputation throughout decades of service—he was known as faithful, responsible, and completely trustworthy. When others conspired against him and convinced King Darius to outlaw prayer to anyone except the king, Daniel didn’t suddenly develop courageous faith because a crisis arrived. He simply continued doing what he had always done: he went home, prayed, thanked God, and asked for His help. Even when his faithfulness resulted in being thrown into a terrifying den of lions, Daniel trusted the God he had learned to trust every day. 

This message challenges us to recognize that faith in the lion’s den is built through faith in the everyday. Daniel’s extraordinary character and trust in God were the result of decades of ordinary decisions, especially his consistent practice of prayer. Instead of waiting until circumstances become overwhelming to turn to God, we can develop our own “trust muscles” by bringing everything to Him—thanking Him for what is good and asking for His help and wisdom in every situation. Ultimately, this message reminds us that when we pray every day through every circumstance, God can use the seemingly ordinary discipline of prayer to build extraordinary faith over time. 

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So this series, Little Giants, that we have been in, is looking at extraordinary things that God has done through seemingly ordinary persons or situations or decisions that might seem everyday, but God does the extraordinary in the everyday. And this week, we are going to look at an extraordinary result that is attached to an ordinary practice of a man you've heard of. And I'm not going to tell you yet who it is because I'm going to let you guess by this first picture. Can anybody tell me who we're talking about today? Uh, yeah, I know. It's so precious. This is a kids' ministry curriculum graphic that I pulled of, say it with me, Daniel and the Lions Den. That is who we're going to be talking about. Daniel, who at the time of this story is, as you can see here, he's his beard, he's not using just for men to dye his beard or hair. He is officially riding into what we would call retirement age. But Daniel is not retired, and he gives us this theme, and this is for our friends who might feel like you've gotten a little further along in years. I want to encourage you with this. If you're not dead, God's not done. And so here is Daniel, a perfect example of this. And that's who we're going to talk about is Daniel and the Lion's Den. And maybe you also think of this particular set of characters when you think of Daniel and the Lion's Den. Who is this? Yeah, all right. Can anybody sing it with me? Scooby-Dooby-Doo. Where are you? All right, yeah, you know, right? You know. Scooby-Doo is a cartoon that most people are familiar with, just like most people are familiar with Daniel and the Lion's Den. It's a story that has crossed beyond the maybe um religious genre of storytelling to the place of even entertainment at times. And I'll tell you why. Scooby-Doo is a product of a production company, a media company that put out cartoons called Hanna Barbera. If you're familiar with them, they put out cartoons like The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Tom and Jerry, and of course, as we know, Scooby-Doo. And Hannah Barbera at one time was the premier cartoon-based entertainment company in America. And here we are today, still familiar with some of these cartoons. The story of Daniel and the Lion's Den is such a ubiquitous story within the context of modern history taken from an ancient story thousands of years ago that it has crossed lines of genres, and people the world over are familiar with this story of Daniel and the Lion's Den so much that the creators of Scooby-Doo, Hannah Barbera, actually put out uh this. I'll put it on screen for you. This is a VHS tape. It's an old photo, so it's a little grainy. You'll have to bear with me. This is a VHS tape, front, back, and side. Sorry, real quick, if you were not born in the 1900s, a VHS tape, it looks like a book, but you put it into a machine and you watch movies on it. And they came out with a series called The Greatest Adventure. And if you see here, it is Daniel and the Lion's Den. I have seen it. I will tell you this. It's not good. But they at least made one. Now, here's why I share that. This story is so familiar that it can become unfamiliar when it relates to our personal growth and our relationship with God. Because some of us, when I said we are going to look at the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den, we thought, okay, then I'm going to go ahead and pull out my phone and check the score of some of the games because I know this story. But maybe you don't know it as well as you do. And maybe there are things in it that can speak to us in ways that we don't realize. And I get it because if you're familiar at all with Daniel and the Lion's Den, you're about to think this. Okay, Pastor Scott, how am I going to relate to a man being thrown in a pit full of lions? The last time I saw a lion was at the zoo, there were barricades between me and it. I ate a churro, it laid there. That was the extent of our interaction. But there are elements in this story that are so profoundly impactful and applicable to our lives. And we're going to look at it because I think we can relate to it a little bit more than we think. And it is just good to get to know our Bibles. And so we are going to dive into Daniel chapter 6. So you can follow along in your Bible or on your phone. We are going to read this entire story through the entire chapter of Daniel 6. Here we go. Darius the Mead decided to divide the kingdom into 120 provinces, and he appointed a high officer to rule over each province. The king also chose Daniel and two others as administrators to supervise the high officers and protect the king's interests. Daniel soon proved himself more capable than all other administrators and high officers. Because of Daniel's great ability, the king made plans to place him over the entire empire. So for context here, Daniel, for us, would seem like he's at retirement age. Daniel has had decades of developing his person and his character, and who Daniel is has stood out. He's from a place called Judah, and him and his relatives and friends were essentially taken captive and moved to a different place, removed from home, taken to a different place against their will and being told, you're going to grow up here. And Daniel and some of his friends whom you have heard of, guys like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you have heard of his friends. They are taken to a place and they are essentially told, look, these young strapping men who we have essentially taken and now want to assimilate into our empire, into our society, we are going to raise them up, we are going to give them an education, we are going to teach them in our ways. And Daniel and his friends said, Look, we will be submissive, we will be honoring, we will be respectful, but we will first and foremost honor our God. And while they put that on the line, you've heard the story of the men in the fiery furnace, some of his friends. Daniel and his friends started to get uh notoriety for their behavior, for their reputation. They honored their God, and it showed up in and through their character. They didn't behave like everyone else, and they they they held a standard that was just different. It was above reproach. And Daniel would find himself in situations where he would gain influence with the king. In fact, the previous king he would have influence with and he would have conversations with, and then insert a new king because, as we know throughout human history, empires rise and empires do what? Fall. And that means there is a change in leadership. Daniel's reputation, his character was so strong, it was so widely respected that even with a change of leadership, Daniel was promoted to a high position. And that's what you have right here. Darius the Mead decided to divide the kingdom into 120 provinces, which means that Darius took over from another king when the Medo-Persians took over and they conquered the previous king and kingdom. And so Daniel gets kind of put in this position as, you know, okay, we got a new coach, and uh I've been the quarterback. Do you still want me to be the quarterback? And Darius the Mead starts to see Daniel as, oh, not only are you gonna be quarterback, you're gonna be starting quarterback, and okay, we're gonna we're gonna do some things. And I want to give you some context here because when we read scripture, not only is it important to know what Daniel's situation was, because we're talking decades of personal development that Daniel had to go through all the highs and lows of leadership changes, uh, political environments, cultural settings. The society in which he lived did not honor God at baseline. So he had to hold fast to his faith. And sometimes for us, we forget. We get so frustrated when we open up our phone and we look at the news, we get so frustrated when we see things online or when we go out in public places and spaces, and it is sometimes it's exhausting, it's angering sometimes, it's scary sometimes to see that our world does not seem to love Jesus or honor God. But God is still over all, and for us to hold fast to our faith is a practice that we must, must deploy in our lives. And we see that from Daniel. He had to do that day in and day out, year in and year out. And so we understand exactly what's going on. King Darius the Mead divides the Medo-Persian Empire into 120 provinces. Now, most people are familiar with different parts of world history. Most, if I were to say the Roman Empire, you would have a familiarity with that. But the Medo-Persian Empire is one of the most influential empires that ever existed in world history. It doesn't get as much, maybe, I don't know, um, entertainment notoriety. You're not going to find mini-series about the Medo-Persian Empire overtly, maybe on National Geographic or Netflix or anything like that. But the Medo-Persian Empire was vast. In fact, I'll show it to you. I have a map of the Medo-Persian Empire. Everything you see in yellow is the Medo-Persian Empire. So if you look, you have got parts of Egypt, you've got parts even up to where, uh up above the Black Sea. You're talking about getting into like Slovenia and Ukraine, and then you've got um India back over here. The Medo-Persian Empire, you're talking tens of millions of people at the time. It spanned across three different continents. This was a massive empire. And so if you can think about it like this, there are 120 towns with 120 mayors, or maybe 120 states with 120 governors. That would be kind of how we can relate to this. So when Daniel is put in charge of some of this, it's nice to think, oh, good for Daniel, he got that promotion. No, no, no. Understand the gravity of Daniel being taken as an exiled immigrant from his home and put as a young man into a society and system that he did not fit into, and he had to hold fast to his faith when everything around him did not honor the God he believed in. And this young man, through all sorts of struggle, all sorts of character development in his person as he honored God day after day, year after year, is put in positions gradually on deck to be the king's right hand over all of this. And this was a big deal. They developed uh what was called the royal road, and in fact, the Medo-Persians are the first to create what we would understand as the modern postal system as a way to deliver things from the several continents that their empire spanned on. That is Daniel's situation. So when we read Daniel and the Lion's Den, most of us think about him in the pit with the lions, but we don't think about the daily development of his godly character that led him through decades to find himself as a person of influence. Can you imagine being a young adult put in a place that does not honor God decades later, because of who you are and the work that God has done in and through your life, that you're now about to be put in a position of no one more influential in the entire empire outside of the king than you, and you honor God. Talk about an opportunity to do good. Don't miss what God can do in your daily disciplines of spiritual growth. Because you're so concerned about will I ever be a giant of the faith? Will I ever have this much joy? Will I ever be able to do this? Will I ever? We're so concerned with getting to the high position over the entire empire that we forget what God does over time in the daily disciplines of godly character development. And Daniel is right here. That's where we meet him. And so the king had made plans to place him over the entire empire. Verse 4, then the other administrators and high officers began searching for some fault in the way Daniel was handling government affairs, but they couldn't find anything to criticize or condemn. Because again, he was faithful, always responsible, and completely trustworthy. Now we say those things and they sound noble, but society doesn't seem to celebrate those things often, does it? No one's getting clicks and views and clout on the internet because they are reliable and responsible. No one's posting pictures of themselves saying, look, I cleaned my room today. No. You know why? Because we chase different types of clout and notoriety. I don't know that you could receive a better compliment sometimes than being called faithful and always responsible, and this one, completely trustworthy. Church, a Christian, a person, do not overlook the seemingly boring parts of your character that stand out more than you think they do. And Daniel was this. They tried to find fault in him, but they couldn't. So they concluded our only chance of finding grounds for accusing Daniel would be in connection with the rules of his religion. Here we go. So the administrators and high officers went to the king and they said, Long live King Darius. They're gonna butter this guy up. And I know this might shock you. It might shock you to read of political scheming and malfeasance. You have never heard of such a thing in your life. I'm gonna milk that. And so they get together to conspire. You know why? They wanted his seat at the table. So they are devising a plan. And so they go to the king, and what do they do? You get more with sugar than you do salt. So they buttered this man up. They walked in. Long live King Darius. Is that a new shirt? You look great. Did you get a haircut? Have I told you? Did you lose weight? You looking buff. Are you working out? Long live King Darius. We're all in agreement. We administrators, officials, high officers, advisors, and governors. You know how people do that when they try to get you on their side? Look, all of us think this. And you're thinking, do all of you think that? It's a trick. It's a strategy. You think they polled everybody? No. No, they didn't. Be leery of that when somebody comes to you. Well, we all think, do you? Do you? Because that's what's going on here. And we think that the king should make a law that will be strictly enforced. Give orders that for the next 30 days, this is a short law, just a 30-day thing, any person who prays to anyone, divine or human, except you, your majesty, will be thrown into the den of lions. And now, your majesty, issue and sign this law so it cannot be changed. An official law of the Medes and Persians that cannot be revoked. So, buttered up, ready to rock and roll, ready to receive the adornment and the praise that he thought he was owed as king of the massive Medo-Persian Empire. Darius says, Great, I'd love it if people only prayed to me for the next 30 days. Bring it on. I would love this. Let's sign it. Here we go. And that's what gets Daniel in a situation he never saw coming. So for some historical context here, the laws of the Medes and the Persian, they're different than what you and I would understand. So in America, if you know one president introduces something and then four or eight years later a new president comes in and he wants to maybe do away with that something, sometimes there are mechanisms for that. Now, in the American government system, there are checks and balances to ensure that it's not just kind of willy-nilly and that sort of thing. However, within the Medo-Persian Empire, it was different. If a king signed a law, the king who came behind him could not change that law. That thing is there and it is there. And so when they bring up this 30-day law, it's one of those, oh sure, I can do that because it's only for 30 days. Does that make sense? It's one of those, but they knew once you sign it, we got you for the next 30 days. No backseats. Okay? You can't take this back. We're doing this. I think sometimes sin tricks us like this. It's just for a little bit. No, no, no, no. It won't lock you in. You can date the sin. You don't have to marry the sin. Just date it, and you won't deal with any consequences because it's short term. Sin is tricky like that. And pride and ego, they play to it, and King Darius falls right into it. So he signs this law that says, anyone who prays to anything other than him, you're going into the den of the lions. But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its window open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to his God. Then the officials, they went together to Daniel's house and they found him praying and asking for God's help. So they went straight to the king and reminded him about this law. Did you not sign this law that for the next thirty days any person who prays to anyone, divine or human, except to you, your majesty, will be thrown in the den of lions? You said that right, and the king says, Yes, he replied, That decision stands. It is an official law of the Medes and Persians that cannot be revoked. Then they told the king, Well, that man, Daniel, one of the captives from Judah, is ignoring you and your law. He still prays to his God three times a day. And hearing this, the king was deeply troubled. Do you know why he was deeply troubled? He realized. Oh no. He loved Daniel. If you have ever been in charge of a group, of a team, of an organization, if you have ever been in charge in any form of leadership capacity, you understand the value of trust. Daniel was known as faithful, reliable, responsible, and completely trustworthy. And this king realizes he was bamboozled. And now the person he trusted the most over his own interests and helping him oversee this massive. Kingdom is now likely condemned to his death. This king is agonizing over it. And so it says this. Hearing this, the king was deeply troubled, and he tried to think of a way to save Daniel. He spent the rest of the day looking for a way to get Daniel out of this predicament. You can imagine the king goes down and maybe to kind of the scroll keepers or bookkeepers, the people who kept notes of historical documents and who understood the law and history, and he was probably trying to make connections with them and saying, okay, look, I'm looking for a loophole here. Show me a case where this can be overturned, right? You've seen those kind of lawyer shows where they're digging into the archives and they're finding cases where they can utilize to make their case to get somebody out of something. And you can imagine, here's this king thinking, this is the person I trust the most. I rely on Daniel more than anyone else. How do I get him out of this? But he knew he couldn't. And in the evening, those same men went together to the king and they said, Your Majesty, you know that according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, no law that the king signs can be changed. We gotcha. So at last the king gave orders for Daniel to be arrested and thrown into the den of lions, and the king said to him, May your God, whom you serve so faithfully, rescue you. A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den. The king sealed the stone with his own royal seal and the seals of his nobles, so that no one could rescue Daniel. Then the king returned to his palace and spent the night fasting. He refused his usual entertainment, and he couldn't sleep at all that night. Very early the next morning the king got up and hurried out to the lion's den. And when he got there, he called out in anguish, Daniel, servant of the living God, was your God, whom you serve so faithfully, able to rescue you from the lions. I mean, do you think he really believed it? He called out in anguish. He probably came to the den. He had to remove the stone and probably is thinking, this is probably a waste of time, but Daniel, please tell me. That this God whom you pray to three times a day, this God whom you've served so faithfully for decades, please. I don't expect to hear anything, but please. Can you imagine the anguish and the fear? He's probably mad at himself. He feels guilty. He's feeling already a loss that is predictable. And he goes to the end of this den. He has it open and he says, please tell me. And Daniel answered. Say, what? I'm gonna say something that I wasn't planning on saying because it's something that God has convicted me of. And maybe this is for you. Sometimes God does not give you the things you want in life the way you want them. Can you still say, Blessed be the name of the Lord? Daniel was put in the den of the lions. He was treated unfairly, condemned to a predictable death. And the very first response when another human being had interaction with him twelve hours later was one of gratitude. Can you be grateful when life stinks? Can you be grateful when people treat you poorly? Can you be grateful in the face of injustice? Can you be grateful when people wrong you? Can you be grateful? That is the posture we see of Daniel, and we're gonna see how he got there. Daniel answers, Long live the king. My God sent his angel to shut the lion's mouths so they would not hurt me. For I have been found innocent in his sight, and I have not wronged you, your majesty. And here's where the story takes the proverbial upswing turn for Daniel and downswing for the bad guys. The king was so overjoyed that he ordered that Daniel be lifted from the den. Not a scratch was found on him, for he had trusted in his God. Then the king gave orders to arrest the men who had maliciously accused Daniel. Uh-oh. And he had them thrown into the den of lions, and this one's pretty tough, because this is this is in history. With their families. And the lions leaped on them and tore them apart before they even hit the floor of the den. Then King Darius sent this message to the people of every race and nation and language throughout the world. Remember, you hear that, it sounds lofty, but remember how large the Medo-Persian Empire was, sitting on three continents. The amount of people who heard this message, peace and prosperity to you. I decree that everyone throughout my kingdom should tremble with fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God, and he will endure forever. His kingdom will never be destroyed, and his rule will never end. He rescues and saves his people. He performs miraculous signs and wonders in heavens and on earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions. So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Okay. What a story. What an extraordinary story. That we don't feel as much as we can sometimes. Because we look at the life of Daniel. We look at the character of Daniel and we think some things. We think, wow, I don't know that I could be that faithful. I don't know that I could be that bold. I would fight tooth and nail if they put me into the den of lions. I don't, I've never even been put into the den of lions. Again, the most I've seen is a cartoon. Or, you know, I watched Madagascar once and there's a lion on that, and you know. How do we relate to this? You gotta feel it. You gotta feel what's going on. You feel the anguish of the king whose most trusted leader is condemned to death because he was tricked into essentially being the one responsible for his what would have been assumedly a predictable death by execution at the mouths of lions. So to understand this, at where this story takes place, where Daniel and King Darius are at the time, lions would roam the countryside and they would terrify people. They would terrify people so much that there would be certain times of the day and night where families would instruct uh other, you know, uh people who served them and their households, do not go beyond a certain distance. They would monitor their children as their children would run and play, and they would make sure they wouldn't go past a certain distance. They were terrified of these lions that could get a hold of livestock, and they would uh be vigilantly on the lookout for these predators. In this uh part of the country, or a part of that country in this part of the world is what's known as the Asiatic lion. It was such a symbol of prestige and strength because the lion was so feared. You can actually find statues. I found one uh that exists, you can actually find statues that they built of a lion because kings at the time would attach statues to showcase uh memorialized strength or attributes of royal stature, and the lion was one of those symbols. And so the reason that you have a den of lions is because kings at the time would get together parts of their armies and they would go on lion hunts, and they would essentially build contraptions to try to trap certain lions, and they would build out these pits. So that word lion's den, the other word for it is pit, and they would dig out these pits, they would build them, and they would keep lions in there as a symbol of strength, and they would bring people, when people would uh visit their kingdoms, the king and his rulers, his high officials, they would walk them around and they would show them their lion's den. They would show them their lion's pits. Like, uh has anyone ever seen? Do you remember back, it was probably like 20 years ago, MTV came out with a TV show called MTV Cribs. Do you know what I'm talking about? Again, it's like, hey, let me show you my fridge. These are my cars. Look at the rims on my car. Look at this. At the time we were so impressed. Look at this 42-inch plasma TV that cost $5,000, right? We saw that. You can imagine uh people would come visit these kingdoms, and the kings would show them it was a flex. It was a sign of look at me and how powerful I am. Come look at this pit of lions. And we don't consider how gritty and real and purely terrifying it is to be in this situation. Daniel knew exactly what happened in these pits. It was where the king would have people publicly executed to show a reflection of his authority and power to induce fear so that no one forgot, if you did something of certain level, you're going into the mouth of the lions, because as the king, I have dominion over this terrifying predator that stalks the nearby countryside. But as king, I hold all the power in my hands. This was a known thing. And the lions don't look like cartoons, they look like this. I'll show you. That's a female Asiatic lion. Now, I'm gonna go stand next to it. This is a picture, and I'm nervous. That thing has not been declawed like you would a cat. That's the real deal. Now, um, here's what her husband looks like. Yikes. Looks like somebody's using a blow dryer on him. This guy weighs upwards of over 350 pounds. The female was about 200 to 250 pounds, and there were groups of them in these pits. And Daniel is told, anyone who prays to anyone divine or human outside of the king is going to be put into a dark pit with those. And not only do they put him in the pit, they seal it with a stone. And if you've ever seen those scenes in movies or television shows where you can see the light starting to fade, and all of a sudden the light goes out. And it's dark, and he's alone, and there's no light, and it's overnight, and he's in there, and he can hear them, he can smell them, they're nearby. There are likely remnants of human leftovers in this pit. And here is Daniel. I wonder if on his way to the pit, even wrestling with these thoughts, but God, I've done everything right. Why is this my fate? Now it doesn't say he thought that, but I know I would if I'm there. He was familiar. These aren't cartoon drawings. This isn't the lion from Madagascar. This is real, this is terrifying, this is scary. You can smell them, you can hear them, you can maybe even feel their breath and the heat from it. And you're there all night, all alone. Just you and the lions. And he knew this was his fate. He knew. But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to God. Then the officials went and they found him praying, asking God for help. This is an extraordinary story. Prayer seems like an ordinary thing to do. But look at what it produced in Daniel's life. This ordinary everyday practice of prayer is a lesson for every single one of us. And here's what the lesson is. Daniel knew that he was going into the pit of lions. This was an execution pit. This was a hundred percent mortality rate. The lions always won. And Daniel knew that's where he's going. And what was his response? To do what he always did. Thank God in prayer and to ask God for help. I don't believe Daniel gets to praying before the pit of lions if Daniel didn't pray in the every day. It is a discipline that patterned his character, and it is a discipline that built his trust in his God. It is a practice that produced trust. It is a discipline that grew him spiritually in his relationship with God because Daniel prayed daily, not just when things were difficult. There's a reason why the song is famous, Jesus Take the Wheel, because it's the last resort. I'm tossing it out. How many of us don't raise your hands but would admit this, maybe inwardly, that sometimes prayer is our last resort, not our first response. But that's not the point of prayer. The point of prayer is not to buy a lottery ticket for your life situation at the end of it because you're at the end of your rope. The point of prayer is not even to get God to go in your direction, but it is to get yourself to go in God's direction. It grows our trust because prayer refocuses our hearts and our minds on who God is and what he has done. That's why Daniel goes and gives thanks. Do you know why he's giving thanks in prayer? He's recognizing who God is and what he's done. And do you know why he's asking God for help? Because he knows who God is and what he has done. So he believes he can trust God with everything. But he doesn't get there unless he prays on the daily. Here's the ordinary thing every one of us can do that produces an extraordinary result in our lives. Go to God every day in prayer. And thank him and ask him for help. And it's even in the little things. And that's the challenge for a lot of us because the conversation I have with most people is okay, yeah, Pastor Scott, I've been going through this stuff. I've been struggling with this. This is what's going on in my life. And I would like you to pray for me. And I say, yes. Oftentimes I'll pull out my phone and I'll put it on my calendar and I'll set a reminder. I will pray for you on this day. I will do that. And then I'll ask them, have you prayed about it? And they said, oftentimes it's, well, no, but I've done A, B, C, and D. And we do that, don't we? Let me try to figure this out on my own first before I consult God on it. I'm sure God's got a lot of good things to say, but I don't want to bother him with this, but also it's probably easier for me to just take control and fix it on my own. And so, yeah, this person wronged me. I'm gonna figure that out on my own. I'm gonna figure that out. Yeah, I'm struggling with this thing that I do, and no one else sees it. It's just me and God and the internet, but no, I'll fix this on my own. I won't be I won't be vulnerable or humble enough to admit this and seek wise counsel and seek accountability. No, no, no. I won't do the things that God says and I won't go to God about it. I'll just I'll just do this. And that's what we do, don't we? You know why? Because we're self-reliant people. Human beings are self-reliant people. We want to figure it out. We're problem solvers, and that's a good thing. It's good to take responsibility, it's good to own accountability, it is good to discipline yourself, to put effort into decisions, because you don't just want to wish that you'll grow in your faith. You want to work to grow in your faith. But are you going to God about everything? Don't forget that God cares about everything in your life because God loves you. Are you going to God about everything? And are you thanking God for everything? Because I'll say it like this. If we want to learn how to trust God with everything, we need to go to God about everything and thank God for everything in our lives. Don't wait until life wants to throw you in a pit full of lions before you pray. Thank God and ask him for help. Practice on the every day and watch the extraordinary work God does in your life through the ordinary practice of daily prayer. Thanking God and asking him for help. Let's pray and then Dylan will come out and finish up with some announcements. God, thank you again for this day and for your word. I pray that we listen to it. I pray that we learn from it, and I pray that we live in such a way that takes your word with us. God, even as we pray now, that you would remind us of this discipline of prayer, and that maybe even this week for some of us, we would do that every day, and we would thank you every day, and we would ask you for help in the everyday things. And God, I pray specifically that you would show up in and through those prayers and that you would grow us as we do that. So, God, be honored by our time together. We praise you, we thank you. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Thank you so much for joining us today at Sunrise Church. We hope this message encouraged you and blessed you. If one of the ways that you choose to worship with us here at Sunrise is by giving online, there's a link right here that you can follow and it'll take you to that payment portal. Everything that you donate helps not only go towards reaching people in the greater San Diego area, but also all around the world through our ministry partner. If you want to get further connected, whether in person or online, you can email this email right here, and either myself or some one of our team members will be there to answer it and help you get connected in any way that you need. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next week.