Young People Of The Bible - Daniel
Living In A Difficult World
Daniel grew up in Israel and was no more than a teenager when he was swept off with the Israelites to Babylon as a slave. He was suddenly surrounded by a completely foreign culture, foreign lifestyle and most importantly a foreign god. How would Daniel cope in this new world full of temptation and sinful living? In many ways, we as Christians are in Daniel’s situation. We live in a sinful world, with foreign ways of living and foreign gods. How can we stand firm for Christ in such a world, and hold onto what is true? Let’s look at Daniel’s example.
In chapter 6 we read that Daniel was a man devoted to prayer. He got down on his knees 3 times a day to pray, as was his custom. Not only this, but so highly did Daniel regard his conversations with God that it didn’t even phase his prayer routine when he was threatened with a den of starving lions. He was faithful in prayer, no matter what the cost would be. Chapter 2 of Daniel shows another aspect of his prayer life. When King Nebuchadnezzar wanted his dream to be described and interpreted for him, Daniel asked for time, so that could pray and ask God for help. The Lord revealed the dream to Daniel in a vision that night, and his first response to seeing the vision was to pray to God saying, “Praise be the name of God for ever and ever, wisdom and power are His.” Rather than rushing off to tell the King about his dream, Daniel took time to give thanks and to praise God in prayer. How importantly do you regard your own prayer life? How faithful are you in prayer? How often do you praise God for answered prayer? Like Daniel, we must make prayer our priority, and his attitude to prayer is one we should try to replicate.
We can also learn from Daniel as a young man in the first chapter of the book when he was brought into the royal court, and he resolved not to defile himself with the king’s food. God had previously commanded in his law that eating food such as the royal food provided by the king was forbidden for God’s people (see Deuteronomy 14:1-21). Again, this was a dangerous move for Daniel to make, yet he decided to stand firm and obey God’s laws. Daniel knew what the consequences of disobeying the Babylonian King could have been, but to him these paled in comparison to disobeying and sinning against the Almighty God. There will be many situations in our own lives where we have to make decisions like Daniel did. Either to take the easy choice and go along with what the world wants you to do, or to do that which is much more difficult; to stand firm for God and obey Him even in the hardest situations. This is much easier said than done, but we can take comfort in that we have a God who will always be there for us. Jesus’ last words to His disciples before He ascended into heaven were “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20)