As a family, we’re reading through Kevin DeYoung’s excellent The Biggest Story Bible Storybook, written for kids aged 8-12. We’re all older than that, but we’re enjoying it anyway.
We’ve just read through a few stories from Daniel. We read about three men who refused to bow down to a golden image, and about Daniel’s refusal to obey the king’s edict to pray to nobody but him. “Just because the new law said every needed to pray to Darius didn’t mean Daniel was going to stop praying to the real God,” DeYoung writes.
It landed Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel, in trouble, but God delivered them.
It takes courage to follow God when you’re in the minority. It takes courage to stand against what everyone else is saying and doing, and then to face the consequences for those actions.
Speaking of the command to bow down to a golden image, DeYoung writes, “Now what would you do? Maybe bow down on one knee, but not really mean it in your heart? Maybe go along with the king’s command and ask God to forgive you later?”
“We’d like to think that nothing bad will happen to us if we do the right thing, except we know that’s not the way things always work. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn’t know what God would do, but they knew right from wrong.”
New Relevance
I know these stories, of course. I was raised hearing them. I read them almost every year. But they hit home this week more than ever before.
We’ve always needed courage. Nobody follows Jesus faithfully without it. But the need for courage has increased in recent days. It takes courage to hold the line on biblical sexual ethics, to preach the parts of Scripture that offend modern sensibilities. Certain forms of religious instruction and pastoral care may be illegal. It takes courage and wisdom to know how to respond faithfully when it may cost.
“Christian courage is the willingness to say and do the right thing regardless of the earthly cost, because God promises to help you and save you on account of Christ,” writes John Piper.
We could get along okay without courage for a long time, or at least it seemed so. Those days are over. Following Christ these days requires courage.
Living for Eternity
I sat with a new believer over coffee, along with my wife. She’d just had a health scare, and God used the events of the past few months to draw her to him.
While sick, she faced her mortality. As God worked in her life, she came to a conclusion. One year, ten years, and a hundred years are all the same in light of eternity. Divide any portion of our lives of by eternity and they’re nothing. If God calls us to pay an earthly price for following him, it’s worth it in light of eternity.
The saints of old suffered because they desired “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16). Paul suffered well because he knew “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
We may need to stand alone and suffer. Things won’t always go well. But that’s okay, because we’re not the first to need courage, and we have a hope that we can’t lose.
