Present in Scary Places
When God Meets You in the Scary Places
Every one of us has a scary place. For some people, it is standing in front of a crowd. For others, it is a doctor's appointment, a counselor's office, or the middle of a storm. Fear is deeply personal and entirely subjective. What sends one person into a panic barely registers on another person's radar. But regardless of what form it takes in your life, the reality is the same for all of us: at some point, life will lead you into a place that frightens you. The question is not whether you will face those places. The question is whether you will believe that God is present with you when you do.
The story of Daniel in the lion's den is one of the most familiar accounts in all of Scripture. Most people encounter it as children, wide-eyed at the image of a man surrounded by lions who somehow walks out unharmed. But when you slow down and read Daniel chapter 6 carefully, you discover that the lion's den itself is almost beside the point. The deeper story is about two kinds of scary places that every human being faces, and about a God who is present in both of them.
The Place of Anticipation
By the time Daniel chapter 6 unfolds, Daniel is approximately 80 years old. He has spent decades serving foreign kings with such integrity and exceptional character that the reigning king, Darius the Mede, plans to set him over the entire kingdom. This decision ignites jealousy among the other administrators and satraps, who search exhaustively for something to use against Daniel. They find nothing. No corruption. No negligence. No fault of any kind. So they craft a trap rooted in the one thing they know about him: his devotion to God.
A decree is issued. Anyone who prays to any god or human being other than the king within the next thirty days will be thrown into the lion's den. Daniel learns of the decree, and then he does exactly what he has always done. He goes to his room, opens his window toward Jerusalem, gets on his knees, and prays.
This moment before the lions is the first scary place: the place of anticipation. Daniel knows what the decree says. He knows what the punishment is. He does not know how God will respond. And in that space between knowing the threat and experiencing the outcome, he has to decide what to do with his fear.
Anticipation is something we all navigate, often daily. At its best, it sharpens our focus, motivates us, and helps us prepare. At its worst, it pulls us into a spiral of worst-case scenarios that loop relentlessly through our minds, robbing us of sleep, draining our energy, and shrinking our world through avoidance. The mind, when left unchecked, often cannot fully distinguish between an anticipated threat and a real one, which means the suffering of unhealthy anticipation can be just as debilitating as the actual event.
What Daniel models in this moment is not the absence of anticipation but the refusal to let it redirect his faithfulness. He does not abandon his prayers. He does not negotiate with his fear. He invites God into the moment. If you are living in a season of waiting, of dreading what might be coming, of worst-case scenarios looping through your mind, the invitation is the same one Daniel accepted. Do not try to reason your way out of the spiral. Bring God into it. Be honest about what is happening inside you and ask for the peace that only He can provide.
The Place of Trust
The second scary place is the lion's den itself, but not for the reason you might think. The lions are real and the danger is genuine, but the deeper terror of this moment is the vulnerability that trust requires.
Daniel is thrown into the den. A stone is placed over the entrance. The king, who genuinely cares for Daniel and is tormented by his own foolishness in signing the decree, spends the night fasting and sleepless. At dawn he rushes to the den and calls out in an anguished voice, asking whether Daniel's God has been able to rescue him. Daniel answers from inside the den. God sent his angel and shut the mouths of the lions. He was unharmed.
It is a stunning miracle. But here is what must not be overlooked: Daniel had no guarantee that this would be the outcome. He could not have known, as he was lowered into that den, that the lions would not tear him apart. He trusted anyway. He made himself completely vulnerable to whatever God decided to do. This is precisely what makes trust so frightening. It requires us to release control of the outcome.
Proverbs 3:5 calls us to trust in the Lord with all our heart and to lean not on our own understanding. It does not say to trust once we understand why something is happening. It says to trust instead of leaning on our own understanding, because our own understanding is limited and can lead us astray.
Trusting God in hard places is not forced positivity. It is not pretending that things are fine when they are not. It is being honest with God about your pain, as the Psalms model repeatedly. It is trusting His character even when you cannot see His plan, as Job modeled through his suffering. And it is anchoring yourself in what God has already done, most completely and finally in the cross, which secured the ultimate victory and confirmed that He has not abandoned us and never will.
Daniel was rescued from the lions, but he was not rescued from Babylon. He was still in exile. He was still far from home. And yet he trusted. He prayed with his window open toward Jerusalem, toward the home he longed for, and he trusted the God who had not yet brought him there.
Whatever your scary place looks like today, whether it is the quiet dread of anticipation or the raw vulnerability of choosing to trust, God is present in both. He has promised to never let go, and He does not break His promises.
Every one of us has a scary place. For some people, it is standing in front of a crowd. For others, it is a doctor's appointment, a counselor's office, or the middle of a storm. Fear is deeply personal and entirely subjective. What sends one person into a panic barely registers on another person's radar. But regardless of what form it takes in your life, the reality is the same for all of us: at some point, life will lead you into a place that frightens you. The question is not whether you will face those places. The question is whether you will believe that God is present with you when you do.
The story of Daniel in the lion's den is one of the most familiar accounts in all of Scripture. Most people encounter it as children, wide-eyed at the image of a man surrounded by lions who somehow walks out unharmed. But when you slow down and read Daniel chapter 6 carefully, you discover that the lion's den itself is almost beside the point. The deeper story is about two kinds of scary places that every human being faces, and about a God who is present in both of them.
The Place of Anticipation
By the time Daniel chapter 6 unfolds, Daniel is approximately 80 years old. He has spent decades serving foreign kings with such integrity and exceptional character that the reigning king, Darius the Mede, plans to set him over the entire kingdom. This decision ignites jealousy among the other administrators and satraps, who search exhaustively for something to use against Daniel. They find nothing. No corruption. No negligence. No fault of any kind. So they craft a trap rooted in the one thing they know about him: his devotion to God.
A decree is issued. Anyone who prays to any god or human being other than the king within the next thirty days will be thrown into the lion's den. Daniel learns of the decree, and then he does exactly what he has always done. He goes to his room, opens his window toward Jerusalem, gets on his knees, and prays.
This moment before the lions is the first scary place: the place of anticipation. Daniel knows what the decree says. He knows what the punishment is. He does not know how God will respond. And in that space between knowing the threat and experiencing the outcome, he has to decide what to do with his fear.
Anticipation is something we all navigate, often daily. At its best, it sharpens our focus, motivates us, and helps us prepare. At its worst, it pulls us into a spiral of worst-case scenarios that loop relentlessly through our minds, robbing us of sleep, draining our energy, and shrinking our world through avoidance. The mind, when left unchecked, often cannot fully distinguish between an anticipated threat and a real one, which means the suffering of unhealthy anticipation can be just as debilitating as the actual event.
What Daniel models in this moment is not the absence of anticipation but the refusal to let it redirect his faithfulness. He does not abandon his prayers. He does not negotiate with his fear. He invites God into the moment. If you are living in a season of waiting, of dreading what might be coming, of worst-case scenarios looping through your mind, the invitation is the same one Daniel accepted. Do not try to reason your way out of the spiral. Bring God into it. Be honest about what is happening inside you and ask for the peace that only He can provide.
The Place of Trust
The second scary place is the lion's den itself, but not for the reason you might think. The lions are real and the danger is genuine, but the deeper terror of this moment is the vulnerability that trust requires.
Daniel is thrown into the den. A stone is placed over the entrance. The king, who genuinely cares for Daniel and is tormented by his own foolishness in signing the decree, spends the night fasting and sleepless. At dawn he rushes to the den and calls out in an anguished voice, asking whether Daniel's God has been able to rescue him. Daniel answers from inside the den. God sent his angel and shut the mouths of the lions. He was unharmed.
It is a stunning miracle. But here is what must not be overlooked: Daniel had no guarantee that this would be the outcome. He could not have known, as he was lowered into that den, that the lions would not tear him apart. He trusted anyway. He made himself completely vulnerable to whatever God decided to do. This is precisely what makes trust so frightening. It requires us to release control of the outcome.
Proverbs 3:5 calls us to trust in the Lord with all our heart and to lean not on our own understanding. It does not say to trust once we understand why something is happening. It says to trust instead of leaning on our own understanding, because our own understanding is limited and can lead us astray.
Trusting God in hard places is not forced positivity. It is not pretending that things are fine when they are not. It is being honest with God about your pain, as the Psalms model repeatedly. It is trusting His character even when you cannot see His plan, as Job modeled through his suffering. And it is anchoring yourself in what God has already done, most completely and finally in the cross, which secured the ultimate victory and confirmed that He has not abandoned us and never will.
Daniel was rescued from the lions, but he was not rescued from Babylon. He was still in exile. He was still far from home. And yet he trusted. He prayed with his window open toward Jerusalem, toward the home he longed for, and he trusted the God who had not yet brought him there.
Whatever your scary place looks like today, whether it is the quiet dread of anticipation or the raw vulnerability of choosing to trust, God is present in both. He has promised to never let go, and He does not break His promises.
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