The decree only lasted for 30 days! I've never seen that before! In other words, all Daniel had to do was to lay low for 30 days, and then he could worship God without fear of recrimination! Would I have been tempted to compromise? "Well, just for the next month I'll pray silently in my heart. God will understand. After all, He needs me here as His representative to these hopeless pagans." Surely Daniel could have justified some sort of compromise for that short period of time--but he didn't. Instead, he went to his room with the windows opened wide for all to see, got down on his knees, and prayed 3 times a day, just as he had always done. (v.10) No whiff of compromise whatsoever! And don't forget this was a very busy and important man who was one of 3 administrators of the entire kingdom. Surely he had little or no free time available.
What does it take for me to compromise? A funny look, a snide comment, a desire not to offend or to please? Or how often have I excused missing my quiet times because of my busy schedule? I think I'll get back going when things has "calmed down" (which, of course, they never do) or I have more time or I feel better... Daniel's example challenges me that there truly are no excuses for being not being faithful to God. It's time to step up and step out in faith and trust that God will use whatever happens to our greater good and His greater glory. And no matter how busy the day, I must daily choose to put Him first and trust He'll enable me to get all those other responsibilities finished as well.
But the second thing I noticed in reading chapter 6 were the snide comments of the jealous men who went to the king to tattle on Daniel. "...Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the decree you put in writing. He still prays three times a day." v.13 I had to laugh at the attempt to put Daniel down with the reference "one of the exiles from Judah." By this point in the story, Daniel is in his 80's and has lived in Babylon for close to 70 years, and he has served as a top adviser to a number of kings of both Babylon and the Medes and Persians. Somehow, I don't think his status as a former exile would be the first thing that people would think of when it came to this distinguished old man. Yet they bring it back up in order to put him down and remind the king that he was not "one of us."
Moreover, you have to love the fact that they characterize him as paying "no attention" to the king or his decree! In other words, this guy is a fanatic, a rebel, a troublemaker. He is not a team player! He has some misguided notion that his God is far more important than the king or the king's (ridiculous) decrees. You get the feeling that nothing in this world could tempt or deter this man of God from loving, obeying and worshipping His Lord.
Boy, I want to be more like that! How often the siren song of the world's allures draw me in and away from the Lord I love. O, I "pay attention" to what the world is saying and doing and in the process, I miss the blessings God longs to give me if my focus was fixed upon Him. It really does come down to that: fix your eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2). When we pay attention to something, we focus upon it, we look intently upon it. So I want my attention and my focus on Christ and not the world. It's okay to look but just not to focus. It is the gaze, not the look, that sanctifies.
Help me Lord to daily fix my eyes upon You and to pay no attention to that which seeks me to draw my affections away from You. We are called to be in the world and to be salt and light in that world, but even in the midst of the world (just as Daniel in the very heart of that pagan empire) we keep our focus, our gaze upon Christ. To God be the glory!
p.s. The snow is so beautiful today! Wow, what a wonderful transformed white landscape outside my door! What kind of a Creator would think of snow?! If the earth needed rain, He could have just created rain, but instead He created the unique, miraculous beauty of each snowflake! He is a Creator who did not just consider function but extraordinary beauty and wonder! There truly is no God like our God!
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