By Jon Beaty
How different would the Bible’s story of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah be if they hadn’t asked to be served vegetables instead of the king’s food and wine?
The Bible demonstrates in the story of Daniel and his three friends how relatively small decisions can impact one's destiny. Their decision to obey God stands in contrast to the choice made by Adam and Eve to disobey God and to eat the forbidden fruit. Choices that appear insignificant on the surface can have eternal consequences for us and the people we influence.
In last week's article, I recounted the Bible’s introduction to these young men. Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar took these young men captive in Judea and brought them to his kingdom with many other Jewish captives. Daniel and his three friends were assigned to a training program to prepare them to serve in the king's palace. The king's actions were designed to dishonor the God of Israel and expand the influence of Babylon.
Daniel and his friends soon learned the king's training program included nutritional guidelines that conflicted with God's commandment to abstain from unclean foods and fermented wine. Acting on their convictions, they politely requested an accommodation to allow them to eat vegetables.
Obedience to God was of greatest importance to Daniel and his friends. They also knew from experience that good nutrition benefits physical health. After 10 days on plant-based nutrition, these four young men looked healthier and better nourished than the young men receiving meat and wine (Daniel 1:15). At the end of their three-year training, they were 10 times more competent than the king's most trusted counselors ( v. 20).
If Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah had chosen to dine on the king's diet, they would have compromised their ability to make good decisions. Rejecting the light God had given them, they would have cut themselves off from greater blessings.
• God would not have blessed Daniel with the gift of interpreting dreams and visions.
• We'd not understand Nebuchadnezzar's dream that predicted the rise and fall of earth's kingdoms until Jesus' second coming.
• Daniel and his three friends would have bowed to Nebuchadnezzar's golden image.
• We'd not be able to tell children about their survival in the fiery furnace and Daniel's night in the lion's den.
• We couldn't rely on the Book of Daniel to help us understand the prophecies of the Book of Revelation.
Because of their faithfulness to God's commandments, especially in worship and nutrition, Daniel and his companions glorified God in circumstances designed to dishonor God.
What does this mean for us?
As with Daniel and his friends, our destiny depends on allowing God to write His laws on our hearts. This will inform our convictions and our decisions about how we live our lives, even the nutritional choices we make.
Our well-being on this earth, and our citizenship in the new earth, rely on maintaining our God-given capacity for reasoning, decision-making and emotional regulation. These functions are managed by the frontal lobe of the brain. The functions of our brain are directly affected by the health of the rest of our body. Daniel and his friends took care of their physical health and excelled in mental ability as a result.
When our physical health is impaired by poor lifestyle choices, our brain is impaired, and the frontal lobe doesn't do its job well. The results include confusion leading to more errors in judgment and more wrong decisions, as well as debilitating depression, anxiety and rage.
Through the apostle Paul, God emphasized this important truth: "Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you
must honor God with your body" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NLT).
The prevailing attitude among many Christians is that our bodies are disposable. Their underlying belief in the immortal soul makes it easy to justify abusing their physical body. The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Understanding that the body and soul cannot be separated (Genesis 2:7) underscores the importance of doing whatever we can to improve our physical
health, including the health of our brain.
Our physical and spiritual well-being are interconnected. Choices made to neglect your health directly impact your connection to God, the blessings He can bestow on you and others, and your ability to become God's best version of you.