"It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom, with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel. The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss. Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent."
How could I have been stuck on those verses for about 3 weeks? Well, I just couldn't get past them! I was so impressed and challenged by how Daniel conducted himself that I couldn't stop reading and re-reading that passage. It says that Daniel "so distinguished himself" among the others working "by his exceptional qualities." Now, it doesn't say what those qualities were, but we can make educated guesses right? One of the things I love about this is that it gives you great advice for being a leader. His exceptional qualities might have been diligence, faithfulness, initiative-taking, communicative skills, interpersonal skills, etc. PLUS, at the end it says he was trustworthy and "neither corrupt nor negligent." Basically he conducted himself in such a manner that he set himself apart from the daily pack because he made sure he not only did his job but he did it with excellence. And of course, just like what happens today, people got jealous because he was doing so well. Have you ever had that happen to you? You're trying to do the right thing or you're putting a lot of effort into a presentation or just your daily work, and some people label you as a "goody two-shoes" because the norm for American culture is "how much can I not do and still slide by?"
Daniel didn't care that none of the other people weren't doing work to the same caliber as him. He didn't let it phase him that he would stand out and cause some friction with his co-workers. He did it because that is what we are called to do if you've given your life over to Jesus Christ. It says in 1 Corinthians 10:31, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." It doesn't say "most things you do" or "just your family/work stuff" but in ALL things, to glorify God in how you do them. How do we do that? By doing our work with excellence, being pro-active, getting the job done, communicating well with the people above and below us, being faithful and diligent, creative and wise, in other words, by being like Daniel.
He gave us an example to follow if we truly want to do our work with excellence. I think one of the reasons it got to me so much is that I was just about to be one of three staff for 19 college students for a whole summer and needless to say I was a bit overwhelmed. But reading this passage over and over gave me some qualities to cultivate and goals to have in order to make sure that no matter what happened, I did my job with excellence.
Ever since I studied the book of Daniel 2 years ago, he still challenges me and encourages me every time I read him. Are there things you could work on to do your work with more excellence? Or even in relationships? Anything you can do to become more faithful/diligent/communicative/observant/etc today? I know for me one thing I can work on is being more diligent with planning the summer Christian Challenge schedule for the next 10 weeks. I have an idea, and now I need to hammer it out. I'll let you know how that goes!
And now for a completely different note, here is the funny of the day:
Good luck on your schedule planning. :-)
ReplyDelete