Graceways September 5 Devotional

DANIEL 1:9, 12-16 | ⁹ Now God granted Daniel favor and compassion from the palace master.

¹² “Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. ¹³ You can then compare our appearance with the appearance of the young men who eat the royal rations and deal with your servants according to what you observe.” ¹⁴ So he agreed to this proposal and tested them for ten days. ¹⁵ At the end of ten days it was observed that they appeared better and fatter than all the young men who had been eating the royal rations. ¹⁶ So the guard continued to withdraw their royal rations and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables.

The verses validate Daniel’s decision to be educated in order to serve Nebuchadnezzar, the foreign enemy, and still maintain his Jewish identity. God validates this decision, helping secure the cooperation of the palace master in the special diets and ensuring the robust health of all four Israelites. We see these young men practicing cultural conformity and cultural resistance as well. God did not, in this instance, tell Daniel and his friends to resist anything and everything Babylonian for fear of contamination, but rather to cooperate with Nebuchadnezzar’s plan of education without sacrificing their core allegiances or faith values. They were to represent God’s truth and reality within the heart of Babylonian politics and power—the palace.

Compare this strategy with the instructors to the Israelites who were to enter the promised land (see Numbers 33:51-53).

Gracious God,

Give me a sense today, wherever I go and whatever company I keep, that I represent You.

Amen.