Faithfulness in Babylon

Scripture Reading: Daniel 1:8-21, 1 Kings 8:50, 1 Peter 2:11-17

One of my least laudable traits is vanity. Most people my age have sucked their gut in when posing for a photo at some point, and some of us go to much greater lengths to improve their appearance. Sadly, I’ve even been known to cherrypick a Bible verse here or there to justify the lengths I’m willing to go to protect the altar of my own ego. 

About five years ago, I was reading about the vegetable and water-only diet from Daniel 1 that led to visibly improved physical health, and the plan came together in my mind right there on the spot. The “Daniel Diet” was going to make me a physical specimen, it would jumpstart my literary career, and I would become a cultural leader in the health and lifestyle market. However, a quick internet search revealed that someone had already trodden the landscape of this intellectual property. For now, I would remain flabby, broke, and culturally irrelevant!

I was disappointed, but disappointment inevitably leads me inward, which, in my case, is where the Holy Spirit dwells. And here, I was convicted.

I had gone from earnestly seeking God’s heart in Scripture to blindly chasing the chimeric light of my own possible glory. How quickly our sin nature can distort something pure and holy into something dark and twisted! Ironically, reading about Daniel’s non-negotiable resistance to the food culture of ancient Babylon somehow led to my imagining how I might leverage God’s Word to make a name for myself in the beauty culture of twenty-first century America. 

Clearly, I needed to revisit the story and see what actually motivated Daniel’s obedience. 

“God had granted Daniel kindness and compassion from the chief eunuch” (Daniel 1:9), which perhaps galvanized his courage to stand firm on his conviction. He clearly seemed to have understood that God was faithful and that He would not abandon or forsake His children. Even in the heart of Babylon—the cultural, philosophical, and cosmological antithesis to the kingdom of God—Daniel and his fellow Hebrews chose obedience to God because of who God is, not because of how they would benefit. They trusted in God’s love for them over and above any cultural status or standing that was on the line.

When we’re looking for love or approval anywhere besides God or when we attempt by some personal machinations to render ourselves worthy of love, our behavior ultimately reflects distance from the heart of God. Daniel didn’t eat vegetables and drink water to prove something to someone nor to gain anything for himself. He committed himself to God’s ways as an act of loving faithfulness to the one King he knew would always have his back.

Written by Alex Florez