Today God led me to offer a re-post of a piece I wrote in 2007. I know He wanted to use it to remind and encourage me. Perhaps it is meant for you too. Be blessed.
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As you walk the path of life, ask yourself, “What’s right about this decision I have to make”?
As you know from recent issues of The Point, my Bible study focus for the past several weeks has been the book of Daniel. In the Bible study of the same name by Beth Moore we studied about Daniel and his friends, Hananiah, Meshach, and Azariah (also known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego).
After they were carried into captivity in Babylon, Daniel and his friends asked to be fed vegetables and water rather than the rich food from the royal table. Much of what would have been served on the royal table may have been sacrificed to the Babylonian gods or might have been a meat, such as pork, that would have been considered unclean to a Jewish person. It was at the risk of his life, and that of his friends, that Daniel made such a request to the king’s official who was in charge of the young exiles, but Daniel knew the importance of faithfulness and obedience to God.
Later in their lives, Daniel and his friends faced much greater tests of their obedience to the One True God. It was the faithfulness and obedience to God in the small things, like food choice, that refined their resolve when greater tests came along. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego faced the king’s fury and the fiery furnace because they would not bow down to the image that the king had made, they exercised their faith in God and stayed true to the One who could save them. The same is true with Daniel as he faced the lion’s den because of his refusal to bow to the king.
I want to offer you a quote from Janet Folger’s, “The Criminalization of Christianity” to consider as we think about obedience and faithfulness in the small things that God allows in our lives.
“It’s highly probable that if Daniel had compromised by eating the king’s food, he would have compromised about other things too, like bowing to his image. ‘Oh, I’ll still pray to God, but I’ll just bow to this thing to spare my life, because, after all, I can do a lot of ministry for God if I survive’. That wasn’t Daniel or his uncompromising buddies Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When you obey God in the small things, it becomes a lot easier to obey Him in the big things. That’s when God shows up. He can shut the mouths of lions and protect you from the flames.”
As I read that quote the Holy Spirit convicted me of the need to do a better job of being faithful in the small things. I want God to find me faithful no matter the size of the test, but it is through those seemingly small and relatively insignificant tests that God builds my faith for the larger tests. Beth Moore says,
“Our path to success is uncompromising resolve in big and small things alike.”
MEDITATION MOMENT: Is there an area in your life that seems small and insignificant where God is calling you to take a stand and be obedient? Have you been trying to convince yourself that it is such an insignificant issue that it really doesn’t matter what you do? Could it be that God is testing your obedience in the small things in preparation for a greater test in the future? It is my prayer that you and I will be obedient to God in the small and the great things in this life.
