THE TEETH THAT DIDN’T BITE
Storyteller: Chris Walker
St Barnabas – 24 August
Daniel does not resist. The trap is political, the sentence is fixed, the law has been manipulated to punish integrity. When the edict is signed, Daniel keeps praying — not loudly, not in protest, but exactly as before. No changes. No announcements. Just faithfulness.
The king regrets his own action but cannot lose face by reversing the decree. He honours the system, even as it condemns someone he respects. Daniel is lowered into the den without defence or spectacle. The lions wait.
This is a story about composure under coercion. Daniel’s silence is not passivity — it is defiance without display. The king’s restlessness is a kind of collapse; he cannot sleep. When morning comes, it is not Daniel who has been diminished, but the power that tried to shame him.
Face in this story is managed not by speech, but by steadiness. Daniel protects his dignity not through resistance, but by refusing to perform fear.
Read the story in full — DANIEL 6
Daniel didn’t know how the night would end. He didn’t have a promise that the lions would sleep—only a trust that God was still with him, whatever happened.
Even If by MercyMe echoes that kind of faith: a faith that holds on, not because the outcome is certain, but because God is still God, even when the answer we hope for doesn’t come.
And the beloved hymn Abide with Me expresses this same trust, as we imagine Daniel singing “I need thy presence every passing hour” over that dreadful night.
Let these two songs be our prayers in the places where trust is costly.