and God gave daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs, and the chief of the eunuchs said to daniel, “i fear my lord the king, who assigned your food and your drink; for why should he see that you were in worse condition than the youths who are of your own age? so you would endanger my head with the king.”then daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over daniel, hananiah, mishael, and azariah, “test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king’s food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.” [daniel 1:9-13]
what strikes me the most about the book of daniel is the confidence that daniel, hananiah, mishael, and azariah have in God. they are fully convinced of who God is and what his power can do. and we get a glimpse of the faith they have right here after they are exiled.
they firmly believed that rather than rely on what the world (king nebuchadnezzar) could provide, they could depend on God not only for nourishment, but for their lives. o how life looks different when we are fully convinced of God’s power and his care for us!
what if we stopped right now and took a moment to ask God to remind us of his care? of his all knowing character? of his power? and then were able to walk into our day fully convinced that we don’t need gossip to “fit in,” we don’t need to overindulge in alcohol to numb pain or loneliness, and we don’t need pride or the approval of a teacher or boss to tell us of our worth. we don’t need what the world “provides” because we serve a God who we are fully convinced has the power to provide exactly what we need.
and when we live like that, we don’t even need to try the king’s food, because we know God’s provision is all we need.
~ john sandman