How to be an unbothered old man.
Read Time: 10 mins
Daniel heard about the law, but when he returned home, he went upstairs and prayed in front of the window that faced Jerusalem. In the same way that he had always done, he knelt down in prayer three times a day, giving thanks to God.
Daniel 6:10 CEV
Do you want your life to be completely changed? Do you want to go to a new level with God? Do you want God to trust you to be able to carry and sustain more? Do you want to be unbothered and confident regardless of the situation? Do you want to have peace in the midst of life-threatening situations and an uncommon quality of life? Then you need to be like a senior citizen.
There are some older people I really respect. They are unbothered in any situation. Regardless of the issue and severity of the storm they have peace. They are free. They aren't tied to the chains of people's opinions, bad relationships, or debilitating debt. My grandpa is one of these people and I think I've learned the trick to his abundance of life. He's stubborn. Now we often think stubbornness is a bad thing but it's a great thing when you know what works. He has a routine and is committed to following. He knows what needs to be done consistently in private to show up consistently in public. He knows what is needed to power the life of peace he desires and prioritizes those routines. That’s how Daniel was.
Daniel was an 80-year-old man faced with a threat of death and his response was to go back home and finish his routine. Why? Because it worked. Because it was what he knew he needed in order to get through the various pressures and problems of his life. And if you want your life to change, you have to hold on to what works that tightly too. What is this routine you need to implement? It’s prayer and time in the presence of God. It sounds simple but many of us don’t treat it like a nonnegotiable. If you truly prioritize God, I promise your health, wealth, relationships and responses will improve as an effect. We need to prioritize what we know works. We know how much it benefits our lives but we don’t prioritize it as much as we prioritize food or coffee or sleep or our favorite TV show. If we truly believe that this ritualistic system of time with the Creator is the sole source of our production, protection, prosperity, peace, and power, we should make it non-negotiable.
The Bible declares that if we pray about everything, a peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard our hearts and minds as we rest in Christ Jesus. It doesn’t say that this peace may come or that this peace might come. We are promised a princeless portal into the presence of God. God promises us that the peace and relief we are craving will be imparted to those who pray.
The peace that will given is not a generic version of peace, this is specific. The Bible says that this peace is a peace that surpasses understanding. This peace is so profound that words cannot adequately articulate its power and density. Do you need that? A peace that can only be known, not explained. It's so good that you have to taste it for yourself to get a grasp on the euphoria I am describing. Words aren't explosively enough to tell the half. That is what God wants to do In your life. That’s the cheat code that is being relayed right now.
This peace is meaningful not just because of its depth but also its breadth. It’s a peace that is not just overwhelming for a second, its impact is long-lasting as its effect weaves its way throughout our future. It's not a drug that just gives a momentary high, it's an experience that alters brain chemistry forever. The Bible doesn’t just promise peace for a moment. This peace isn’t bound by our earthy dimensions of time. The Bible says that it won’t just work in the present, but it will guard your heart and mind in the future. This act of prayer protects and provides. It affects the future experiences of your heart and mind; your emotions and thoughts. In the most anxiety-stricken generation, prayer is our power. But that’s not all.
This peace doesn’t just transcend, it transports. The Bible describes prayer as a portal. The passage proclaims that as we engage in this action, we will rest, live, and abide in Christ. You can find yourself whisked away like John or Paul, experiencing previews of heaven. The writer of Hebrews declares that we can boldly enter into the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary. You don’t have to wait to sing with the angels. I mean that. You don’t have to wait to feel that warmth of your Father. You can be caught up in vision, transported, and unaware as to whether you are in your body or out of it as you experience the sounds, colors, and warmth of heaven. You can experience God so clearly that the earth will look dull and colorless in comparison. You can be where Christ is by enabling the portal of prayer. Prayer doesn’t just give us a new peace, it puts us in a new place. Prayer is the door by which we enter the refuge and strength David talks about. Prayer transports you to the safety of heaven. Prayer transports you to the protection of your Father. This transcendent, transporting peace comes from abiding in safety with the Prince of Peace.
God isn’t just offering peace on Earth, he’s offering an escape from Earth. We haven’t even scratched the surface of what the power of prayer truly means. This is why Daniel was able to pray in the face of these life-threatening situations. The Bible says that prayer was his routine. Prior prayer gave him the peace to make it through the threat. He was unbothered in the face of these attacks because he had spent time abiding in the presence of God and allowing his world to be bathed in the peace of God.
But I still haven't really got to what I wanted to get to here. We get that. Or at least we think we do. Daniel's story has been told since grade school. We think we get the necessity and power of prayer but why do so many of us still experience so much worry? Obviously, something in this equation must be wrong. This old man was unbothered by the threat of a lion attack and you are ready to have a panic attack because a boy without a job broke up with you. It doesn't look like we are getting the same benefit from prayer. Daniel is experiencing a sense of greater peace, confidence, and boldness than many of us can say we have experienced. If we were honest, as I was describing the peace, protection, transcendence, and teleportation prayer can bring, many of you thought I was exaggerating. Many of us haven't even scratched the surface of the level of spiritual depth God has made available to us.
The stories we hear in the Bible are only a taste of what God can do in your life now. God gives gifts that are miraculously powered by His Spirit. Bodies can still be healed with a word. We have a hard time believing this. I want us to experience and find comfort in the fact that God is truly with us. Walking and talking with us. Giving the words to say and the places to go. God speaking and moving in our lives should be commonplace. Enock walked with the same God who wants to walk with you. So what are we missing? What is stopping us from diving into these deep relationships with Jesus? I believe the answer is tied to a stronger and deeper routine of intentionality. Give me a moment to explain.
God has given us many ways to connect with Him and the methods that you feel more drawn to will differ from person to person. We can call these Spiritual Temperaments. I can't get into the details of all of them but I can give an overview to help us follow. Some of us are Naturalists. We feel closest to God in nature and seem to learn the most about God through nature. Others are Sensates who encounter God most through their experiences. Some are Activists. They experience God when fighting for a cause or the well-being and welfare of the voiceless. Some are Ascetic. They feel they experience God most while in solitude and silence. Some are Caregivers. Their connection with God feels most alive when looking after those who cannot fend for themselves. Some are Enthusiasts. They want to celebrate God with energy and vigor. Others may be more Contemplative. They encounter God most when they can sit and digest what God is doing through journaling or private prayer time. Others subscribe more to the temperament of the Intellectual. They feel God most deeply when thinking through the science, philosophy, and theology behind God and what He is doing. Then there are the Traditionalists. They encounter God most when following historic routines and rituals that point them to the regality of God.
Your Spiritual Temperament may be that of a Naturalist, Sensate, Traditionalist, Activist, Ascetic, Caregiver, Enthusiast, Contemplative, or Intelectual. Your temperament isn't better or worse than any other temperament, but it is what may be wired most closely towards. Temperaments have their strengths and challenges and often conflict with each other when we don't recognize that there are more ways to encounter God than our favorite way. Many church fights aren't just based on generation or culture, they are based on temperament. When you believe that your way of encountering God is the only way, you don't just see other temperaments as a threat to your desires, you see those who hold other temperaments as areligious and less than. My top temperaments the last time I took an assessment were Enthusiast, Intellectual, Contemplative, and then Sensate. So if you know me, you know my first gear is most people's tenth. That is the enthusiast in me. I am perfectly fine with singing one sentence 30x in praise and worship and I will admire a new aspect of God in each line, but I understand the intellectuals who feel that that can be shallow. It’s because it's not their temperament. They don't understand the true depth and euphoria that those with other temperaments may be experiencing. The intellectual side is what had me sneaking into Senior Theology classes as a college freshman and buying textbooks before I had the class. I remember one of my friends (and multiple professors) asking me to stop arguing and asking so many extra questions in gen ed religion classes cause everyone didn't come here to dive deep into Kierkegaard’s teleological suspension of the ethical. You must understand and be aware of your temperament. But the reason I bring this up is because I believe many of our churches and communities may be multi-generational, multi-ethic, and multi-culture but we seek to be monolithic in our treatment of temperaments. God didn't intend for you to have a one-dimensional experience with Him. Maybe we could go a lot deeper in our relationships with God if like Aang from Avatar, The Last Airbender, we sought out the benefit from every method and discipline, even the ones we aren't as comfortable with currently.
We all have biases to some of the other temperaments. The Activist may believe the Intellectual is missing part of the gospel, and that may be true if your theory never becomes praxis. The Enthusiast may not understand why it “takes so much” for the Ascetic to get excited without recognizing that they are experiencing God deeply as they commune in solitude. We can all grow in our walk and depth with Christ by seeking Him in the other ways He has outlined.
What I love about Daniel, is that we see some aspects of the spiritual temperaments that we often forget in his routine. Now honestly, these might be things you already do but for me and my temperaments, God has used this to show me aspects of my walk that I can better implement.
Solitude - Daniel gets alone with God. While the practice of sharing each other's burdens and confessing sins together brings healing, freedom, and a special revelation of God, some of us are missing out on the benefit of solitude. I'm a big extrovert who likes to be around people and express thoughts with people but one of the best gifts God has ever given me is time alone with Him. while some of us are natural introverts and need to work hard to seek community, others of us need to work hard to seek solitude. Sometimes it feels scary but it's so freeing. Sometimes you have to get away from all other voices, opinions, and perspectives to hear God clearly. Solitude can typically be paired with silence. Something that has been hard but revolutionary in my prayer life is beginning and ending my time with God with 2 minutes of silence as I focus my thoughts on Jesus. I would love for this time to grow in the future. A conversation with God should not be a monologue with yourself. Give Him space to speak.
Place - Being intentional about your prayer locations can be the key to a deeper prayer life. While you can pray anywhere, the intentionality of creating an altar can open a new door to encountering God. All through the Bible, people picked places of significance and dedicated them as meeting places with God. Daniel's alter was an upstairs room, facing Jerusalem. I’m sure Daniel had significance to why he turned towards Jerusalem. It meant something to him and that helped him to focus his attention on what he needed God to be in that moment. For you, it may be the foot of your bed, a balcony, a table, a closet, or a garden. In college it was a pond on campus and a janitor's closet I would leave open for myself to sneak into. One of my friends picked a boiler room in our college apartment and the next tenant said they still felt the presence of God in that closet the next year. Create a place that is special for you. Your mind will start to associate it with the focus on God you desire.
Position - The position you pray in can be just as significant as the place. You can lift your hands in desire, or fall to your face in surrender. You can lay prostrate. You can curl in a ball and cry. Daniel kneeled. Maybe it helped him to see God as a superior or it was a symbol of the rest he was taking in Christ. You may need physical stillness to help focus your heart and calm your thoughts. Different prayers, situations, and desires will require different positions. You can be intentional about how you physically approach God.
Consistency - This aspect is one of the most important we see in Daniel’s story. When I was younger, I would try to spend time with God in the morning. As life went on I would have ebs and flows in my consistency. Around the end of high school and the beginning of college, I started to get stronger. God led me to something revolutionary. I wouldn't just have worship in the morning, I would also have a night devotional. It may sound simple but it changed my life. I would read through one book of the Bible in the morning and another at night or I would do one study in the morning and read a book at night. I essentially was able to get through double what I would be able to do if I just went to God in the morning. The consistency compounded. But as life and responsibilities increased, I still needed more of Jesus. Around my sophomore year of college, I got heavy into podcasts and sermons. I would have my personal Bible study and devotional time in the morning and evening, and then in the shower, I'd listen to a sermon or Christian leadership podcast. Since 2018 I've been pretty consistent at listening to at least one sermon or Christian leadership podcast by having it playing while I take a shower. Now that I've been pastoring and have more responsibility to pour into others as well as keep up with my individual spiritual needs, I’ve been pushed to do more.
Especially as a minister or person of influence, which we all are, you have to make sure you aren't cooking for others while forgetting to feed yourself. If you are called to intercede for or minister to others, you may need at least two times a day to focus on God. One for you and one for the people you’re ministering to. It may look like morning Bible study, shower sermon, Christian book, devotional, podcast, or prayer pause in the afternoon (as many as you can fit in), then another time with God in the evening before bed. Now I'm not perfect at this and you won't be either. This level of consistent and continual time with God doesn't always end up happening. Oftentimes I'd rather scroll YouTube shorts or waste time on Instagram, but I'm trying to tell you that when my priorities line up I am overflowing. It doesn't just change my day, the time spent the day before overflows into the next. Giving God time is always worth it, and that consistent filling compounds. You may think you don't have time but do me a favor and check your screen time on your phone and tell me how much time you spend on social media clips you can’t even remember the next day. Playing a sermon, or letting the Bible app read aloud while you take a shower, cook dinner, or drive to work won't impede on anything else you have scheduled. Truly allow God to be Lord of your time. Create time to put your thoughts on Jesus. Monks throughout history would do something called a daily office. It was different than a regular devotional or worship time because the goal wasn't to be filled by God once a day as it was to just be with God at least twice a day and center your attention on Him. The “Office” in Daily Office comes from Opus in Latin which means work. These monks believed that their duty was to clock in with God at least twice a day to just sit in His presence and listen for any instruction. This was their life work, to be in the presence of God. It was important. Daniel did the same thing. Daniel was one of the top advisors in the country. You aren't more busy or pressured than Daniel was. He was busy but made the time with God his priority. You have time too. Plus, I believe God multiplies the things we give Him the first fruit of. Give God your time and He will perform miracles in your time, energy, and schedule capacity.
This list is not exhaustive. There are many things that you may add to your routine that will increase the amount of touch points you have with God in a day. My focus isn't what you do as much as it is your intentionality in doing it. I’m asking that you like Daniel become a stubborn old man when it comes to your power source. Don’t miss your routine of prayer. Be consistent. Be intentional. Be dedicated. A lot of the lifestyle people say is hard to achieve is just the right discipline. How committed are you to the inner workings of your life that will power your success?
