Deeper Reflection
Daniel begins with “Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself ” while living as an exile in the world of Babylon (Dan 1:8). And it ends with God’s last words to the aged Daniel toward his completion of answering God’s call for his life (v.13). God’s last words to Daniel signal God’s affirmation of Daniel that he had lived well and finished well in his life. These divine last words to Daniel point to what occupy our lives and what should preoccupy our minds.God said to Daniel, “Go your way to the end.” “The end” is Daniel’s death, and “Go your way” refers to Daniel’s routines before his life ends: “Get back to your desk and filing cabinet, Daniel, and finish your day’s work; plod along in living quietly and working with your own hands and being faithful to King Cyrus, your Persian employer.”³² Our routines are earthly but necessary, and we go through them in an unpleasant world of beasts (Dan 7:1-8). But our orientation in life ought to be on ultimate realities: the future, not the present; and the eternal, not the temporal. In our inescapable physical tiredness, we set our minds on the eternal “rest” that we “will enter into” (cf. Rev 14:13). Our body is inevitably decaying toward death, but we hope in the resurrection to a glorious body: “you will rise again” (cf. Phil 3:20-21). As we are faithful to God until death, we will receive our reward from God: “your allotted portion” (cf. 2 Tim 4:6-7).What do you desire to be God’s last words for you?

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³² Dale Ralph Davis, 168