Daniel 1 – Enemy Employers

The past few weeks have been a delightful chaos of kids graduating from high school or college, kids getting engaged, kids getting married.  That so many of these kids have grown up here at Cedarbrook makes it all bittersweet.  Tears come easily for me this spring.  And over it all hangs this thing we call hope.  As they clutch their diplomas or walk back up the aisle, they dream dreams of their future.

Daniel and his friends were at that same place in life – at the beginning.  But now over their young lives hung, not hope, but despair, anxiety, fear.  Their future was gone, robbed by choices not of their making and powers beyond their control.  Then a window opened, a little ray of hope.  Imagine the sense of relief they must have felt at being chosen.  They were to be trained as servants in the royal court – not the life they wanted, but given their options, a good life.  A chance.  A future. 

But the good life has a price.  In this case, compromise.  (Some of you are at that same place in life right now.)  To climb through that window, they would have to compromise their convictions.  We can already hear the internal dialogue.  But it’s such a small thing.  It’s only lunch.  No one’s asking us to fall down before an idol.

But Daniel resolved not to defile himself (Daniel 1:8).

Any battle with sin begins here, with an internal choice, a resolve, a fixing of the heart, a purpose not to be defiled.  There may be many steps to follow: prayers prayed, verses memorized, prayers enlisted, accountability partners, Bible studies.  But it all begins here, alone, deciding not to take even the first step.

And my story, your story, begins here.  The kind of life we will build, the sort of man or woman we will become begins with a resolve, a fixing of the heart, a decision about what we will or will not do to earn the good life.

In the end, Daniel and his friends didn’t find a good life.  They lived charmed lives.  They walked through the fire and faced down lions and lived to tell about it.  (You really should read the whole book.)  And it was far more grand than anything they had ever dreamed those long years ago skipping rocks across the Jordan.

– Paul Abbott