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PROGRAM D-8165
Daniel chapter 1 gives us a marvelous example of how Daniel remained strong and true to his convictions and did so in the right way.
In completing our thoughts on this topic, one very smart thing Daniel did was to come up with an alternative which would not cause him to have to do what he knew was wrong, yet at the same time would allow him to meet his employer’s objective. Anytime we must take a stand that says, “No, I cannot do that,” we should do everything possible to follow it with, “But I can do this.”
My friend, Beth, worked for a manager who wanted her to tell people on the phone that he was not in the office even when he was. She couldn’t do that since it was a lie, so she very nicely explained this to her boss. He respected her so much (for, parenthetically, Beth’s life and her care for others had earned her the right to be heard), that they worked out an alternative: When someone called and he didn’t want to talk with them, he would physically go out of the office—totally outside the building—so that Beth could honestly say, “He’s not in the office.”
Daniel’s story has a happy ending in this case, but remember that it doesn’t always work out exactly that way. Daniel faced other situations where his stand for God was very costly. You remember the lion’s den; he was thrown in there for refusing to worship a false god.
My point is that we must be prepared to take a stand for God and for Christian principles, regardless of the outcome. When we do, there may be times that our stand for Christ will be costly.
However, don’t you think that many of us cause a lot of the problems we face when we do take our stand for Christ because we aren’t doing it in the right way? We should prayerfully and carefully approach these situations, always asking God to give us great wisdom in choosing our words and our actions.