The king assigned them [Daniel and his fellow countrymen from Judah] a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service. . . .
But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. Now God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel, but the official told Daniel, “lam afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you.”
Character Check How have I recently shown integrity at work?
In Business Terms In Leading with Integrity, Fred Smith, Sr., an executive with Genesco for many years, wrote, “I heard the Jewish writer Chaim Potok say a true leader is never absorbed into the stream in which he swims. … The integrity of a leader often is shown in the stand he takes for right against mistaken popular concepts.”
For the business professional, not to be absorbed into the culture of his or her work may mean different things. For some, that may mean deciding not to take a promotion so their family doesn’t have to move cross-country again. Their decision cuts across the grain of the mistaken notion that family always takes a back seat to career. For others, that may mean speaking out against a corporate culture that tacitly permits sexual harassment. Both decisions may have serious consequences.
I often wonder what would have happened if Daniel hadn’t taken a stand. At the very least, the high-stakes drama of Daniel in the court of the Babylonian king would never have played out. Because Daniel was not absorbed in the stream of Babylonian culture, he allowed himself to be used of God in a mighty way.
—David L. Goetz
Something to Think About Courage faces fear and thereby masters it. Cowardice represses fear and is thereby mastered by it. – Martin Luther King, Jr.
