Our Assignment

For sure, I do not recall all my school assignments but there are a few I cannot forget! For example, I vividly remember ninth grade Physical Science light drawings and the tenth grade bug collections for Biology. These were huge assignments, not to be completed over a few days but rather projects to be worked-on and completed in addition to ongoing daily assignments. Daniel and three Hebrew friends were young Jewish teenagers who were abruptly taken from their homeland into a foreign land, receiving new [and unusual] assignments from a pagan king: "The king assigned a daily ration for them from his finest food and from the wine which he drank. They were to be educated and nourished this way for three years so that at the end of that time they were [prepared] to enter the king's service." (Daniel 1:5 AMP). As worshipers and followers of the One True God, they must have wondered how they were to continue in their faith when facing these new things! Although the king's food was concerning [because it has not been prepared according to the Law of The Lord], the real issue before Daniel and his friends wasn't the food. No, the problem was that these young men had long before devoted themselves to pleasing The Lord - not man. They found themselves indeed in quite a situation, and often so do we. Before them and before us daily is what is often referred to as the ... slippery slope. Oh, you know that tricky decline: a slope we all find ourselves on at times where we are tempted to compromise, wobble a little this way or that way; before long, we're victims of the slope and have declined far from what we know to be right and pleasing to The Lord. In the ongoing of our every day lives, how do we win over the decline? Paul writes, "Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong." (1 16:13 ESV). This is exactly what Daniel and his friends did - they were watchful at what was presented to them, they stood firm and acted like the men of God they had devoted themselves to be, and they proved strong! "But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself ..." (Daniel 1:8 AMP). No matter how slippery that slope was, God gave Daniel (and his friends') the grace to remain true to their assignment ... that is, pleasing God alone. You see, we too must take joy and find all the resolve to stay faithful to God and what is pleasing Him - that's ... our assignment.