sometimes God spares us

Today we read from Daniel 6:1-28 in the One Year Bible. Daniel is doing a fantastic job in Babylon, and Darius the Mede notices this. He makes plans to put Daniel in charge of the entire kingdom. Kind of reminds you of Joseph, right? Well, Daniel's peers were less than pleased, and they tried to find something he had done wrong so they could drag him down. But they couldn't find anything. So they trap him, knowing that he prayed several times per day.

The good news is that God protected Daniel, and even though the evil men tried to get him killed, God closed the mouths of the lions that were supposed to kill him. 

It wasn't too long later, though... only a few dozen years... that other followers of God were thrown into a place with hungry lions. And this time the lions killed them. The early Christians were often fed to lions as entertainment for the bloodthirsty Romans. And God did not close the mouths of those lions.

So we see that God doesn't always do the same thing with us. Sometimes He protects us from harm. Other times He walks through the harm with us, and uses our suffering and even our deaths for a greater good. In either case, we can be sure that our pain is never meaningless, and God uses even the most intense suffering for the good of everyone, including those who suffer.

God, thanks for protecting us from harm... and for using harm for our good when the times call for it.