“Please test your servants for ten days.” (Dan. 1:12)
WEARING EYEGLASSES when you have four small children poses a problem. Anything a young mother owns is going to be grabbed, dropped, sat on, and played with—especially if it’s sitting on the front of her face. I remember selecting a pair of flex frames, the kind they advertise as bendable, twistable, and almost indestructible. “Do they work?” I asked the optician.
“Sure,” she said handing me a display pair. “Give it a try.” And I did. The frames were as durable as advertised, and the optician knew that. She was willing to put them to the test.
Daniel did the same. Though he resolved not to eat the king’s food, he had little choice if his health failed. But he wasn’t worried, practically begging the official to test his theory. After all, it wasn’t Daniel who was put to the test; it was God. Daniel had confidence, not in his own ability to stay healthy, but in God’s ability to protect him. We call that faith.
We often talk about God standing behind us as our protector and comforter, and God does have our back. But in this case, Daniel stood behind God. He stood behind God’s promise, showing that he had absolute confidence in God’s commands. Will you do the same?
Heather Gemmen Wilson is the author of the Global Warning Series (WPH), a fiction series for preteens, and she inspires young minds as a professor of creative writing.
© 2017 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission.
