Thought for the day – Wednesday 22nd April 2020
Brought to us by Carol Almond
Daniel and his 3 friends were taken captive and brought to Babylon. They were amongst a group of young men, who were from Israel’s nobility. They were handsome, intelligent, well informed and showed an aptitude for all kinds of learning and understanding. These young men were brought into the king’s palace where they would be trained to serve the king. They were assigned a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. The book of Daniel tells us that Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the king’s food and wine.
Did it matter when everybody else was eating the king’s food? He might well that thought that keeping the food laws belonged to the old life back home. Life was pretty rubbish, so why not enjoy the rich food and drink? But this decision wasn’t a trivial one to Daniel. Daniel had decided to honour God in all things and to live by his ways. He knew that the law in Leviticus 3:17 says, “wherever you live, you must not eat any fat or any blood”, so the new food was unclean. The most important aspect of Daniel’s decision not to eat from the royal table was that it would be sacrificed and offered to false gods before it was served.
It was Daniel’s priority even in captivity, to remain true to God and to remain true to his own conscience. It would be much easier to go along with what was asked of him, much easier to keep the peace and not make waves. After all, you wouldn’t want the king to know you weren’t doing what he wanted – it could have dire consequences.
So Daniel asked the chief official for permission to to defile himself with the king’s food and wine. The official was sympathetic but was afraid for his own skin: he thought they would look worse than the other men. So Daniel appealed for a testing period of ten days. Daniel and his 3 friends would eat only vegetables and drink only water. At the end of ten days, the official would then compare their appearance with that of the other young men. At the end of the ten days Daniel and his friends looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So they were allowed to continue to eat vegetables and drink water. God was honouring the stand that Daniel and his friends were making, as they honoured him.
Daniel and his 3 friends made this stand over the food and wine right at the beginning of their new life in captivity in Babylon. In doing this, he laid the foundation for the rest of his life in Babylon. People saw Daniel’s godly life and he became known for his integrity and wisdom. In chapter 4, King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, and none of his wise men could tell him the dream or interpret it. Then Daniel was called in. Why? Because he already had a reputation for wisdom. The lifestyle he had lived for many years, had given him the platform to speak. He had earned the right to speak and to talk about God’s part in the situation.
Daniel lived a consistently godly life even in this pagan country. Daniel continued to pray 3 times a day, just as he had always done. A decree had been published that everybody should pray only to the king for the next 30 days. His enemies knew that Daniel was faithful in prayer to God and they were relying on trapping him with this decree. Was Daniel tempted to compromise just for 30 days? No, he continued to do what was right and trusted God to work things out – he trusted that God was in control of this situation. Daniel had learned the secret of a godly life – to continue praying to God in every circumstance, and to continue to trust Him, no matter how tough it gets.
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