The Importance Of Repentance And Being Humble As Depicted In The Book Of The Daniel

The Book of the Daniel is one of the latest Hollywood adaptations of an Old Testament account on Daniel. This is an engaging and entertaining Hollywood movie that tells the biblical story of the Daniel and his accounts and activities outside of his land in promise to see his land. It follows the book of Daniel very closely and uses the narrative of Daniel to portray how even when all seems lost, God is still with his own. How many of us stay determined, motivated and faithful till the very end in whatever we experience in life, whether would it be good or bad experiences? At some point when we have a hard time in our life, or when we experience something hurtful and stressful for us, we begin to doubt and question God. That is true for most of us and is quite normal for us human beings to feel. However, the titular character of the movie, Daniel is very determined and faithful to God. Even when his city was taken over by Babylonians, he did not doubt his God instead has a realization that this was all done for what we have sinned on Earth. The very first expression of doubt is in Genesis 3:1, when Satan tempted Eve, he wanted Eve to doubt God’s command. After she affirmed God’s command, she doubted later and finally did what she was not supposed to do. Adam and Eve’s doubt of God’s command brought consequence to them and to the entire mankind. We got deprived of intimacy with Lord until he returns. But we can still have a special connection with him.

What is the point of requesting God when we do not have faith in him or if he will answer our request? Trusting God, even if his plan is against our reasoning or in hurtful situations, is what should be done. We are responsible for having doubts and it would bring us consequences. We should not give up on God because of these doubts but overcome with having strong faith in God because God would never leave us. If we have faith in God, we can overcome obstacles in our life. This would provide us spiritual support in hard times and strength to cope with the situation without thinking of something negative that could harm us, for example, suicide. Having faith in God makes us humble and not arrogant about what we have achieved. At some point we become arrogant and prideful of what we have achieved, and, in this process, we neglect others and forget about God. We should be humble to God. God wants us to realize our helplessness and our sinfulness and need for God. But In modern society, we are moving away from the idea of humility which is seen as a bad trait. If we admit to our fault, we are seen as weak by people and humility is seen as a flaw. But not having humility moves us away from what God thinks we should be like. With no humility, our pride becomes a huge obstacle for us to acknowledge God. Only if we put our pride aside and our negative and wicked thoughts and actions, God would bless us. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon”.

Sometimes, we get so busy that we forget the purpose behind our lives. We are driven by daily demands in our lives that we forget that God has a greater purpose for all of us. The purpose of our lives does not only affect us but also the people who surround us too. As in the movie, dreams of the king Nebuchadnezzar or the action of jealous administrator and satraps had the purpose of its own. Our life has a purpose even if we are in a very different profession, place or something very unrelated to God and events in our life has a purpose to teach us a life lesson. We all are not here by accident, but God has made us to be here. As stated in Genesis 1: 28, “Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole Earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all beasts of the Earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creature that move along the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.” He has specific plans for our lives, and he is here with us at every moment of the day. This even tells us that every one of us is equally important to the lord and he never has been partial to anyone. Every creature from tiny ants to huge elephants has the purpose of their lives to what seem to us almost nonliving- plants. We should not be feeling as we are nothing but ordinary. We have nothing special in us. Instead, we should be proud to have our own specific purpose from God and seek to achieve it. Our life experiences even small, insignificant event has a purpose in shaping our lives and we should thank God for that. But we have to work on our own to get to that with just thinking and solely depending on Lord would not get us anywhere near to the result we want. 'All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk only to poverty'. Just solely depending and thinking but not carrying out our own work would not result in any good but could lead us to where we would have nothing. We all are given chances by God to improve depending on the severity of sins we have committed. We should use that chances to realize our own mistake, this life of ours is a chance in itself to accept our own mistakes and become a better person, a person that God has always wanted to see.

As in Exodus 5: 1-2 “And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’ But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and besides, I will not let Israel go.” Pharaoh was given many chances to humble and repent, but his heart hardened towards the Israelites more. Thus, his pride came in his way to be humble and repent and he had to suffer because of his pride. This also shows that even the Pharaoh who considered himself king of kings had a purpose in the plan of God. In this society of individually driven, we get what we have earned through our hard work. No one can substitute in for us. Therefore, we should take our chances seriously and repent our mistakes and come to a realization about what is wrong that we have done. By realizing it and confessing it, we will feel better and negative emotions and thought of ours will go away. Even science has proved that venting our emotions we could feel better and a lot of times when we have done wrong confessing to it and not keeping in the heart could lead us to a better life. This movie was based on the book of Daniel with various fantastic themes from which I could only mention few that are important in my life. Even though not being Christian, a lot of themes are common to what I have learnt from my own religion. Repentance and being humble to God is one we could get closer to God and improve our life experiences is one of them and I think it is important for anyone’s life experiences.