“But Daniel purposed in his heart”
If you want to find a story common to just about every children’s Sunday School class, just look up the account of Daniel in the lions’ den.
As Scripture tells us, Darius the Mede, king of Babylon, had issued a decree that no one in his kingdom could pray to any god or man, save Darius, for 30 days. The penalty for disobeying? Become finger-food for a den of hungry lions. As we know, Daniel refused to bow his knee to the king, and instead continued his regular prayers to the God of Israel. But when he was tossed to the lions, instead of facing gnashing teeth, he met closed mouths.
The next morning, he said to Darius–who, incidentally, was probably a bit shocked to see an intact Daniel–“My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not harmed me… ” (Daniel 6:22a).
Here we see a marvelous display of God’s power. But to understand why Daniel would chose death over bowing to a false god, we have to go back to chapter 1. Specifically, verse 8: “But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself….”
This particular verse is talking about the foods Daniel would or would not eat, based on Old Testament law. But the point is Daniel’s heart was already set. Just as Isaiah writes–“I have set my face like a flint” (Isaiah 50:7)–Daniel had already determined in his heart that he would worship only one God. He didn’t wait until King Darius’ decree came down and then spend three hours trying to decide whether or not he would obey God or man. No, Daniel “purposed in his heart”–long before the moment of action came.
The word “purpose” in verse 8 is from the Hebrew word suwm. Strong’s concordance defines this word as “to put”. In Scripture, it is used to convey “to put, place, set, appoint, make” and also “to ordain, establish … determine, fix”.
Daniel’s heart was fixed, established, set in place. So when the crisis of choosing came, it was no crisis at all–Daniel had already made his decision.
In Joshua 24:15, we read, “And if it seem evil until you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whose ye will serve….”
This one choice of what we “fix” our hearts on will determine how we respond to the thousands of choices that will bombard us in life.
Or, with the Psalmist, we can say “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast” (Psalm 57:7).
We can choose to be, as Ephesians 4:14 describes, “children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”
May we choose to have a purposed heart.
You have touched on a fundamental principle of living the Christian life: deciding in advance what we will do with temptation. When the priority to choose God’s way over our own is firmly established in advance, choice loses its potential power of conflict and confusion. In my day, we used to call it making a decision “a priori” – that is, making a decision ahead of time. Webster defines it as a decision “formed or conceived beforehand.” As you wisely pointed out, “when the crisis of choosing came, it was no crisis at all–Daniel had already made his decision.” May we follow his example.