Keegan "Worshiper of God"!

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzer king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. Daniel 1:1





Before I retired, as most in the work force, I received yearly evaluations. I hated them, not that they were ever bad but I didn't like being critiqued. One of the things on the lists of categories was how I looked. Most supervisors would rate me high on that one I suppose because I loved getting new scrubs for work, so I imagine I looked pretty spiffy. (I actually did retired with the most scrubs on record). "Always neat in appearance" was the way they put it. If they had stopped there I would have felt the experience to be worthless but they did continue to give an evaluation of my work. I wasn't there to look neat, even as much as I liked buying new scrubs, I was there to care for patients. So I wanted a word on that part of my job.

I remember as a teenager I would have given anything for someone to think I looked "neat"! "Cool or as we used to say, Tuff" would have been even better! Back then, as now, looks are very important to young people.

Daniel, of the Bible, was "all that" so on that terrible day that Nebuchadnezzer besieged Judah he was one of those picked. He was of the royal family, handsome, and according to the Book of Daniel, bright as well. Attributes once thought of as good, now seemed to be a curse to the young Daniel. How humiliated he must have felt as the King's servant checked him out like he was a prized horse or oxen. I'm sure Daniel concluded that a "pretty face" was not all it was cracked up to be. Because of these traits he would be carried far from his beloved Judah to live in Babylon.

When I think of Daniel, I can see my grandson Keegan. He is from the royal family (the family of God), he is handsome and he is smart. If Keegan had lived in 605 B.C., he most likely would have stood before the Kings servant as he searched for brightest and the best in all Judah. If I could warn my grandson as well as his peers I would tell them that the devil prowls looking for who he may devour or “besiege” and it seems that young people are under attack. TV and movies glorify beauty and rarely mention or in anyway glorify integrity, honesty or sincerity. Immorality is portrayed as normal if not completely “cool” in the media today. Teenagers are carried away from their Christian beliefs and held as Daniel was in “friendly captivity”. Many times as they search for meaning in life, they find that their captor thinks nothing of them personally, they are just another pretty face but by then he (Satan) has lead them far away from what is good to feast on what is bad.

After arriving in Babylon, Daniel’s name which means “worshiper of God” was changed to the Babylonian name Belteshazzar which means “Bel will protect” (Bel was one of their Gods) but Daniel didn’t let his captors change who he was. He refused to eat from the King’s table and he never forgot that he was Daniel worshiper of the God of Judah!


Sent from Jeanie!