So here we are again. It only feels like moments ago we were celebrating Leicester City winning the English Premiership and now everything is up for grabs once more. I haven't finished celebrating and commiserating with my children or their friends on their GCSE and A-level grades and now it's back to school time already.
September resets the merry-go-round. The holidays are over and it's back to work and education and exercise routines again. But just before we dive back in, maybe we could pause – or at least hover mid-air between the diving board and the pool. Is there time to take a quick breath before we get immersed in the business of life again? Is there a second to readjust our posture so that we might be better prepared for what is coming?
Let's think about Daniel. He was about to be immersed. Far away from home, he was on course to be put through an intense process of enculturation sponsored by the Babylonian government, Israel's invaders. The unstoppable force of the Babylonian army had marched all the way into Jerusalem and ram-raided the Temple, the beating heart of Jewish life. The army had carried off not just the most sacred objects but the most prized possession in the land – the young people. The Babylonians took the sons of the nobility, the bright and the beautiful. The plan was simple: to radicalise them, to induct and instruct them into the Babylonian mind-set then send them back as reprogrammed leaders of their nations. It is a classic imperialist idea of cultural assimilation, not dissimilar from the Star Wars model of the imperial powers conscripting men from their conquered lands to use as stormtroopers. Or perhaps you remember it from The Hunger Games, where Katniss Everdeen is chosen as a puppet of the state to give a local face to the empire's way of thinking.
The displaced young people were stripped of their family, their name, their clothes, their dreams, their opportunities and their familiar practices of their faith. Having deliberately destabilised them, Nebuchadnezzar's plan was to set to work on reprogramming and repurposing them as pawns in his bid for domination. It's hard to imagine how much more difficult life could have been for young Daniel, how isolated and disoriented he felt, how torn and bereft.
I hope you don't feel like Daniel did. I don't believe there is a mastermind attempting a huge social engineering project to conscript us to his cause. Yet there are some similarities to life as a Christian in the western world today. There are hidden influencers – and not so hidden – that have a plan for your life. Consumer society would like to see you buying more things and then telling others to buy those things too. There are millions of Apple or Android evangelists around the world who have sacrificed their hard-won earnings to buy the latest products and then feel personally motivated to get other people to buy those same things. Through social media we now share our images of the good life by curating an idealised picture of ourselves and our circumstances. We broadcast them to the world so that other people might want the same things that we do. We too are immersed in a cultural rebranding programme that consistently seeks to win not only our allegiance but our onward propagation. So what can we learn from what Daniel does next? There are three elements to his actions with lessons for our own lives.
1. Identification: Hold on to who you are
One of the defining characteristics of being a teenager is the quest to know who you are. Many teenagers experiment and push boundaries with their language, clothes, image, and behaviour in order to work out their identity. It is not surprising that young people are on the receiving end of the most social pressure to fit in and to be accepted. The hardest thing is to be the odd one out, the last one picked for the sports team, the one with the wrong haircut or yesterday's brand of trainers. I remember feeling isolated in school because of my skin colour. I tried all sorts of ways to try and blend in, before beginning to come to terms with who I was when I became a Christian.
Daniel's Babylonian captors knew all about social pressure. They did all they could to rebrand him – new clothes, new diet, new social group, new purpose in life. But Daniel fought to maintain what he knew was his true identity. Although his new name was Belteshazzar, he is consistently referred to by his Jewish name – Daniel – which means 'God is judge'. Wherever he was, he would be true to his relationship with his God and judge.
Every day we make choices about who we are going to be in any given circumstance. When we leave the house we can stop being a mum, a dad, a son or daughter and become someone new – a business person, a school pupil, a colleague, a friend. Often the temptation remains to try to blend in to whichever environment we are immersed in, adhering to the social expectations around us. The challenge to us is whether we have an overarching identity that can remain consistent despite the pressures of these different social interactions. Do we belong primarily to God in all of the different social settings we are in, or are we content to lose our Christian identity for fear of social exclusion?
2. Conviction: Remember who is in control
I was standing on the edge of the bay wall 25 feet above the water. My coasteering instructor was reassuring me that this was a safe jump but my feet were glued to the floor. No matter how loudly I shouted that I trusted him, no matter how I nodded my head in affirmation of the instructor's kind words, I couldn't move. My actions spoke louder than my words. My petrification proclaimed loud and clear that I wasn't convinced he was telling the truth. The same is true with the Christian faith. No matter how loudly we sing, or how high we raise our hands, if we don't actually do what Jesus commands us then we don't really trust him.
Daniel was no dietician. He could not know for sure that his choice of a simpler diet would lead to him looking equal in health and strength to his peers. Daniel did not know about the metabolic or calorific value of the foods before him. But he did know about the power of food to control. So he made a faith commitment: "Daniel resolved not to defile himself." He may have feared Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty military dictator who ruled over Babylon, but Daniel knew that despite appearances he was not ultimately the highest authority in the land. Daniel's resistance proclaimed that he believed there was a higher throne, a greater king. The words that came from Daniel's mouth and the food he chose not to put into his mouth proclaimed loud and clear that God was Daniel's king.
We might feel like nobodies, with little power at our disposal, and few meaningful choices that we can make in life, but there will always be an opportunity to express our dedication and devotion to God through the choices we have before us. In your circumstances, what does it mean to follow Daniel's example and seek out ways to proclaim through life and lip that God is King?
3. Subversion: Choose your battles
When was the last time your faith asked you to make a decision that you wouldn't have otherwise? When was the last time you were willing to stand out because you were convinced of Jesus' claims? When was the last time you risked being labelled, socially excluded or worse? There's lots of debate about why Daniel chose to draw a line with food. He could have staged a sit-in and refused to study Babylonian language and literature. He could have made a song and dance about his forced name-change. He could have refused to wear the same clothes as those around him. But he draws a line at the diet on offer. It doesn't seem to be because of the kosher laws or because the food had been offered to idols – presumably the vegetables would have been offered to idols too. Perhaps he knew his own weakness.
Once, I got upgraded to first class on a transatlantic flight. I enjoyed the experience very much – perhaps too much as it was very difficult to get used to going back down to economy, where everything was suddenly a bit more cramped and stale than I remembered. In retrospect, the free upgrade had come with invisible strings attached. I became loyal to that airline in the hope they would spot me again. But they didn't.
Daniel did not have many choices that he could make in his life. He couldn't choose what to study, where he lived or even what others called him. Daniel even had to seek permission to eat differently, but he did so not as an act of defiance but as an act of devotion. His small stand made a big impression. His devotion to God meant that even his diet could subvert the system.
There are many Christians around the world today who can identify with Daniel's position even more directly than we can. Christians who have their freedom severely limited because of the persecution of their faith. Believers who are imprisoned because they will not give up their Christian identity or their Christian convictions. Christians who subvert the system to confess that Jesus is Lord.
As we dive into autumn with all its business and pressure, where will you seek to make a stand for Christ? How can you devote yourself to him in all that you think, do and say? What will be your act of resistance, your choice of reverence? Your decision of defiance? Your offering of devotion?
Rev Dr Krish Kandiah is a contributing editor to Christian Today, the founding director of Home for Good and an author and speaker. Follow him on Twitter @krishk.
