One Small Obedience

(“But Daniel determined that he would not defile himself by eating the king’s food or drinking his wine, so he asked the head of the palace staff to exempt him from the royal diet.” Daniel 1:8)

Good food is one of the exquisite joys of life. Not everyone may like exotic fare, but a well prepared meal with top-notch ingredients and perhaps a few items we have not tasted before, is seldom turned down. Growing up in a lower-middle class minister’s family, I had little opportunity to sample much high-class cuisine.

The first time I ever had Cornish Game Hens was in high school. My girlfriend prepared a beautiful dinner for her family and myself. She worked on it the entire day, even though she was sick with a fever. The hens were served whole, lying on a plate in front of each of us. They looked succulent and smelled like Thanksgiving.

But I had one problem; the turkey on Thanksgiving was always cut up and served in pieces. I had no idea whatsoever about how to dig in to this one-piece hen. I fumbled with my knife and fork long enough to watch the rest of the family begin their dissection of the bird. I immediately followed suit and enjoyed the sumptuous fare, suspecting none were the wise.

So, why is Daniel so persnickety about eating the king’s food? This is an honor. My girlfriend would have broken up with me a lot sooner if I had refused her game hens. (Yes, as destiny would have it, she broke up with me about four weeks after our wonderful meal anyway.) Why is Daniel turning down this meal of meals?

Daniel, along with several other young adult men, had been captured by Nebuchadnezzar in Jerusalem and brought back to Babylon. They were intended to serve in Nebuchadnezzar’s courts and part of their indoctrination in the ways of Babylon was to learn their dietary customs. There was only one problem; the king’s food included much of what was forbidden by the precepts of Mosaic Law. So Daniel determined he was not going to eat it.

This was huge! This simple decision could have meant Daniel wouldn’t have to worry about eating anything whatsoever again. To turn down the king’s provision was equivalent to absolute disobedience and the consequence could have been his life. But Daniel would much rather suffer the king’s wrath than disobey what he knew his God required.

“Oh Daniel” we are tempted to think, “The food is no big deal, and surely the Lord would understand. You don’t have control over your diet there, brother. You just can’t go demanding lamb when all they offer you is lobster. It’s the king’s table, after all, not just some neighbor up the street.” Unfortunately, we often bail ourselves out of hard decisions with exactly the same sort of reasoning.

But this thinking leaves out one issue: God is able to provide when we obey! Daniel believed that. It didn’t matter if he was going to live or not, it mattered that he wanted to please the God he loved. How about us? Which is more important: to fit in so that no one thinks we’re one of those weird Jesus-people, or to make hard decisions based upon the truth we know about God?

In those times it can seem as if God is going to leave us high and dry. We might even reason that it was God who made us end up in this foreign land, so it’s not our fault that the food doesn’t meet His requirements.

But Daniel didn’t think that way at all. Daniel remained faithful to God when it appeared that God had not been faithful to him. His home was probably destroyed, and he had been taken into captivity by the king of Babylon. Even though it appeared, at least from a human viewpoint, that God had forgotten about the capture Israelites, Daniel would not forget about God, even when it came down to something as insignificant as food. It was Daniel’s decision to obey.

More importantly, Daniel valued God’s favor over man’s. Daniel was taken prisoner to climb the ranks in the king’s court; one of several “hunks from Israel” personally picked out for just this position. But, instead of trying to move up the ranks, he decided to obey God, even if it meant he would be left behind in the Babylonian Training Guard. Decisions like “Do I keep my commitment to the God who loves me, even when it means others will think I’m strange” are what each follower of Jesus must face.

What is it for you and me today? Do I excuse small things because I think God just isn’t all that interested in minor infractions? Or, like Daniel, do I make up my mind that God is worth my entire devotion, no matter what the world around me may think.

Rather than asking, “Can I get by with this”, what would happen if we asked, “Is this God’s will?” How would my life change if I stopped thinking about the easiest way around every situation, and actually considered what Jesus would do?

It is a mistake to think that the "small choices" don't impact on our lives. What may seem small to us (the refusal to eat the king's food) proved to be a watershed event in that led to the good hand of the Lord upon Daniel's life for the next 60+ years!

Don’t let the little things seduce you away from the most beautiful experiences in the world. Beginning his time in the king’s court with a sold-out commitment to God, Daniel became God’s mouthpiece to three different generations of kings in Babylon.

What one small obedience in your life might make all the difference? Consider it, do what Daniel did, actually decide to obey, no matter the consequences. You may be opening the door to even greater things from God.