"Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.
Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God."
Daniel 6:4-5
Reading this today I thought it was strange that they were actively looking for ways to destroy Daniel by finding fault... but then after thinking about it more, realized that this is exactly what was done with Christ... searching out ways to find fault so they could have an excuse to remove him, and also that we often look to find faults in others so that we have an excuse not to like them, or to feel like we are better, or justified in treating them differently than we do our friends. The thing that had seemed so foreign a moment before in these verses seemed very familiar when I started applying the lesson in other contexts, and especially to myself.
A lot of the gospel is like that... easy to see when we are thinking about and applying it to others, but harder to see when we bring it closer to home. Today, let's think about these universal lessons and how they apply to ourselves and our lives and relationships first... let's work on getting ourselves right, and a little less hypocritical, before we starting applying lessons outside ourselves. Not to fall in shame and guilt, but as an impetus to repentance and change... more empathy and less judgement.
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