You are King. You are near. You are God. You are there. You are here.

It’s been an amazing week at CIY Move here in Cedarville, OH. We ended the week with 6 baptisms, and almost the entire group of 43 committing to jump in as a #kingdomworker. We’ve seen prayers answered, lives changed, burdens lifted, and friendships formed. Today’s text was a story that may seem familiar, but we had the opportunity to look at it with fresh eyes based upon all of the context we’ve had studying the book of Daniel all through the week. Daniel 6 is the text in which we find the story of Daniel in the lion’s den. The thing is, Daniel didn’t start by saying “What can I do that will be so big that it will get me thrown into a lion’s den.” He started by saying “how can I be faithful to God?” And faithful he was doing the same thing he had always done; praying fervently to the Lord. Daniel had so many private moments leading up to the public moment that we all know about. That’s a lot like what we experienced this last night at CIY. There have been so many conversations, prayers, seeds planted, and foundations laid, that led to this evening of 6 students surrendering their lives completely to Jesus Christ and being baptized in the lake on campus here at Cedarville University.

What we’ve challenged the students to continue to take ahold of is this example of Daniel; of His simple, quiet devotion to the Lord in prayer, that became the backbone of strength for when he had to face the big public moments. So as we begin to think toward home, we look forward to entering back into the places and spaces where God is already working. We know He is here. We know that He goes ahead of us. We know that He will be there (wherever our “there” takes us.) We look forward to the ways that He will show up and lead us into what’s next.  We praise Him for His amazing work.