Politics is stressing people out. So much so that on election day last month, the New York Times offered help by tweeting “5 ways to soothe election stress.” Their suggestions included “plunge your face into a bowl with ice water” and “breathe like a baby.”
Clearly, people are getting desperate about how to cope with the anxiety caused by intense political division.
At my church, the pastors have been preaching through the book of Daniel this fall, and it offers an alternative to “breathing like a baby.” In the middle of personal, political, and cultural upheaval, Daniel and his friends demonstrated a calm, cool, and courageous demeanor that would’ve made the Brits proud. The more things spun out of Daniel’s control, the more he was at peace. To borrow from Edwin Friedman, Daniel was a nonanxious presence in an anxious world.
4 Ways to Soothe Political Stress (According to Daniel)
Whatever Daniel had, I desperately want—and our politically stressed-out society needs. Here are four insights from Daniel’s nonanxious presence that can help.
1. Remember God.
The book opens with Daniel and his friends in Babylon where they were promptly renamed and enrolled in the Babylonian Leadership Academy. Despite watching his hometown burn and his kinsmen perish, Daniel doesn’t lose his cool when they seek to strip his Jewish identity. He calmly persuades a reluctant guard to allow him and his friends to try the Rick Warren diet rather than eating unclean meat.
How did he remain nonanxious? There’s a clue in the opening sentences of the book: “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand” (Dan. 1:1–2).
Daniel is in Babylon, but he knows—despite all the pain and torment he saw in Jerusalem—it’s not by accident. It’s part of God’s plan.
Likewise, Christians may feel like the world is out of control. It’s not. Jesus is on his throne. Anxiety flees in the presence of Jesus. An anxious person fears a future beyond God’s control. But a nonanxious person looks to the future and sees God is enthroned—now and forever.
2. Embed in Christian community.
The next time we meet Daniel, the king’s guards are hunting him down, under orders to execute him and the other wise men who failed to tell Nebuchadnezzar his dream. Despite the mortal danger, Daniel calmly speaks to the guards with “prudence and discretion” (2:14).
A nonanxious person looks to the future and sees God is enthroned—now and forever.
How does he remain nonanxious? He embeds himself in community: “Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to . . . his companions, and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon” (Dan. 2:17–18).
Anxiety thrives in isolation. If you want more stress, spend more time alone, disconnected from others. Doomscroll with all the doors shut. The nonanxious person has deep relationships with Christians who listen and pray with them when life feels overwhelming. They remind one another of God’s reign and encourage one another to stay calm and faithful.
If anxiety flees in the presence of Jesus, it also flees in the presence of good Christian friends.
3. Submit to God’s will.
In Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego take center stage in a showdown with the king. I never tire of their remarkable response to the king’s megalomaniacal threats to take their lives:
O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. (Dan. 3:16–18)
They are confident their life is in God’s hands, not in the king’s. Yet they never presume to know what God will do. Their job is to remain faithful and prepare to die. God’s job is to see to the rest.
A nonanxious person believes that if God was sovereign over the furnace, surely he’s sovereign over election results.
4. Confess sin.
While meditating on Jeremiah, Daniel reads that the exile will last 70 years (Dan. 9). Knowing the end is nearing, he confesses Israel’s sins, just as God commanded in Deuteronomy 30. Remarkably, he doesn’t confess Babylon’s sins. It’s not because he didn’t know Babylon’s sins. From his position, he knew the vanity, cruelty, greed, immorality, and idolatry of Babylon. Yet he doesn’t issue an impassioned invective against Babylonian culture.
If anxiety flees in the presence of Jesus, it also flees in the presence of good Christian friends.
After lost elections, Christians are quick to confess the sins of the culture rather than the sins of the church. Paul suggested a different way: “For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?” (1 Cor. 5:12).
Daniel isn’t overlooking Babylon’s sins. He refused to eat the food from the king’s table. His friends refused to bow to the golden image. Daniel refused to pray to Darius. He doesn’t submit to the cultural pressure to conform. And yet the sins of God’s people loom larger in his heart than the sins of Babylon.
While Christians are pointing an accusatory finger at the culture, Daniel hands us a mirror so we can do some self-examination. Daniel’s confession also shows that while the exile was the consequence of sin, it didn’t pay for sin. Only Jesus can do that.
If anxiety is a sense of dread about the future that leaves you feeling uneasy and fearful, it wilts in the presence of the cross. Because it’s there that we know our King died to secure our present forgiveness and future resurrection. Political parties prove fickle. Jesus has promised to never leave us or forsake us—which frees us to be a nonanxious presence in an anxious culture.
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