One of our favorite getaways as a couple involves traveling to Pennsylvania Dutch country in beautiful Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The scenery is spectacular…huge, sprawling farms as far as the eye can see, creating a view diametrically opposed to the mountainous terrain that we call home. And the food is simply amazing! One could feast at a different Amish buffet every day for a month and never visit the same establishment twice! I’m generally flexible when it come to taste-testing new flavors and foods, but my hubby is not so willing to experiment. We were shopping at one quaint country store on our latest excursion to Amish country and while there I sampled some drop-dead-yummy marinara sauce. I used every persuasion tactic in my arsenal, trying to get my husband to sample just a taste, but he wouldn’t budge. Just try it for heaven’s sake. How can a grown man being so stubborn? The sauce contained that dreaded ingredient, garlic, and if I have learned one thing in 44 years of marriage, it is that my husband has a stubborn palate, and garlic overload is definitely out-of-bounds. I resigned to the fact that I was not going to win this battle; we were not purchasing any garlic-laced marinara sauce today.
Few things were more crucial to the Jewish nation as their food guidelines, how it was prepared, whether it was clean or unclean. Chapters are dedicated to the dietary regulations placed upon them through the Mosaic Law. Daniel’s parents would have passed on to their son the urgency of following those strict guidelines established by God. Those godly parents could never have anticipated the fact that Jerusalem would have been invaded and overthrown, their son forcibly removed from his homeland and transported to a palace in the heathen nation of Babylon. Would they have ever imagined that their son would someday eat with Gentile royalty?
But there Daniel sat, ripped from his homeland, sitting with the choicest young men, and appointed “a daily provision of the king’s meat.” The KING”S MEAT! Wow, the choicest of the choice! But wait, had the food been properly prepared, according to Jewish law? In Babylon, meat was meat, and I am in Babylon, not Jerusalem, so but does it even matter? It’s such a minuscule adjustment, a marginal compromise? But Daniel refused to make marginal what was once central to his belief system, so he “purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat.” Daniel demonstrated that he would not be flexible when God’s Word was involved; he would not compromise his convictions.
I would cherish the opportunity to congratulate Daniel’s parents on a job well-done. The wisdom he displays in translating his faith into action is astounding; he was so strongly grounded that even marginal compromise was not considered. Whether it involved his food choices, his prayer life, or his devotion to the true God of Israel, he would not let slip those precious truths he had been taught. May we be the type of parents who firmly instill truth into our little ones, so that they may stand strong when the winds of compromise blow. And may we be those children who hold fast to what we have been taught by faithful parents.
Hebrews 2:1 Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have learned, lest at any time we should let them slip.
God, help me to hold to my convictions, those precious truths that I have been taught from His Word. Convict me when I am tempted to make even marginal compromises.