Daniel, Shadrach, Instagram & TikTok
We don't know what our kids' fiery furnace will be, so how can we prepare them for it?
During the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 my friends and I were hearing consistently from moms with grown kids the following refrain: “I can’t imagine raising kids right now. It would be so hard to have everything shut down and not be able to go anywhere.” Due to the nature of my husband’s job he was still going in to work everyday while I was at home, homeschooling my young elementary aged sons. It was stressful for all of us. Remember those early, early days when we were afraid to even touch the mail? Obviously things improved and we stopped talking about “flattening the curve” and more about “the world opening back up.”
But, then y’all, culture seemed to just get, well, harder. I heard one thought leader refer to it as “cultural whiplash”. Is wearing your mask loving your neighbor or living in fear of disaster? Culture and the media were saying that girls can be boys and boys can be girls. Racial tensions were high. My friends and I were wondering, what type of world are our kids growing up in? How do we prepare them for adulthood when things feel so unstable? To be honest, I felt pretty lost for awhile there. This wasn’t the struggle of potty training a toddler. I couldn’t just call up my mom and ask for advice from a veteran mom.
Daniel & His Friends
But in all of this, the Holy Spirit was comforting me. I kept coming back to the stories of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The Biblical narrative doesn’t tell us anything about the women who raised Daniel and his three friends but I like to imagine that they were strong, smart, faithful Jewish women who, along with their husbands, taught Daniel and his friends Jewish law, customs, and to honor the Lord their God. My imagination may be wrong on the former, but we do know a few things for certain:
Daniel had some really good friends. They were willing to stand up with him and go against the crowd. These four were not the only Jewish young men in Nebuchadnezzar’s court but they are the ones named as having gone against the Babylonian culture. These guys stick it out through some pretty rough stuff (hello, fiery furnace!). About 600 years later, the Apostle John will write, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Theirs was this type of friendship. Because of their deep commitment to God, they were able to support each other.
Daniel and his friends knew scripture and recognized God as the creator and sustainer of life. They were refusing to eat and drink the king’s food because of the Levitical commands warning against eating food sacrificed to false gods. This is an extension of the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.” They didn’t say a quiet blessing under their breaths and hope for the best. Maybe they even remembered Leviticus 18:2-5 where God instructs Moses to tell the Israelites to not follow the culture of the Egyptians or Canaanites. The people of God were to be set apart.
Within twenty years of Daniel and his friends refusing to eat the king’s food, Jeremiah is writing to the captives in Babylon telling them to “seek the welfare of the city” and to multiply, “do not decrease.” (Jeremiah 29) The Jews were commanded to build their families, to build community. “Pray to the Lord on [Babylon’s] behalf, for when it thrives, you will thrive.” We should create culture, not let culture create us.
It’s pretty easy to feel conflicted, overwhelmed and hopeless in our current western, post-truth world. But the story of the exiles in Babylon doesn’t teach us to give up and assimilate. It teaches us to stay faithful to what God has called us to as believers in the one true Lord who is sovereign over all and will return on the clouds. “His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will not be destroyed.” Daniel 6:14b
Dear Christian Parent, we ought to be developing in our children godly lifestyle habits and pathways for righteous living, not allowing digital media and smartphones to shape their choices and behaviors. We ought to demonstrate to them what it looks like to walk away from a feast offered by the world. We ought to instill in our kids the confidence to do the same.
Culture, Technology & the Future
Daniel and his friends didn’t eat the meat or drink the wine thereby, they didn’t become part of the cultural norms of the day. I think we can assume from the text, that other Jewish young men did partake. Let’s be charitable and say these other men were conflicted and maybe they ate the food, but didn’t drink the wine, or they avoided some of the food and limited themselves to only one glass of wine. We don’t know all of the ins & outs of what the other young Israelite men did because it isn’t recorded for us so I don’t want to spend too much time hypothesizing except to say this: it is hard as fallen, sinful humans to remain faithful to God. (Even the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 7:15-20 about his struggle with doing good versus doing evil and the war that rages inside him.)
The Babylonian leaders spent three years trying to assimilate the best and brightest of the young Jewish men, into their Babylonian culture by teaching them the Chaldean language, having them read Babylonian literature and eating the king’s food. (Daniel 1:3-5) Does this remind anyone else of the early church of Acts? The people were devoted “to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42) What we read, what we talk about, what we consume - it all shapes us. Can we dabble in social media and not have it influence us? How do we apply Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”? If social media impacts adults, how much more does it impact our kids? Studies show that social media is making kids and teens anxious and depressed. The earlier kids get a smartphone or tablet, the worse their mental health is in their early 20’s. But, it’s not only that these platforms are addictive and have damaging content. As Clare Morrell with the Ethics and Public Policy Center writes,
The character traits that are adaptive for the online world are maladaptive for the real world. Technology creates dependence and addiction, instead of independence and freedom. It rewards and celebrates self-focus and self-expression rather than responsibility and service to others.
For thousands upon thousands of years, parents have raised kids without smartphones. Raising kids to be productive members of society who know and love Jesus was hard then and it’s hard now. Dear Christian Parent, if we are going to raise up Daniels, Hananiahs, Mishaels, and Azariahs, we don’t have the luxury of not taking this cultural moment seriously. The data is clear - social media and smartphones are hurting kids and teenagers. Just like God provided a way for Daniel to not be captive to all of the Babylonian culture, we too can be set free of this digital bondage. We can say no to smartphones and social media for our children.
The Moon & The Stars
We can’t prepare our kids for every bad idea that’s out there. Only God knows what the future will bring. But, what we are called to do is what I like to imagine that Daniel’s parents did. They taught their son truth. His father and mother taught him the words God gave Joshua, “This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to meditate on it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do.” (Joshua 1:8) Daniel’s parents taught him what is true, good and beautiful so that when he saw the evil, vile and ugly, he would recognize it. Our admonition as Christian Parents is abiding in the truth that our “help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:2
I pray, and hope, that our kids learn to delight in the Lord and all he has made. As King David wrote in Psalm 8:3-4: “When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man, that you look after him?”
Let’s give our sons and daughters the gift of time to marvel at the glowing stars and moon, not glowing devices in their hands. As a first step, go outside tonight with your kids. Take the time to marvel at the work of the one who made you.
And when you wake up in the morning, step outside and look at the sunrise. Listen to the birds. I believe God delights when we delight in Him. Ask God for the wisdom needed to raise the next generation of those who will follow Him.
And PS - If I could have lunch with anyone from history, it would definitely be Daniel’s mom.