Daniel and the Path of Difficult Discipleship

I recently saw a picture quote on Facebook which says that if a door doesn't open, it's not your door. President Uchtdorf's talk, Be Not Afraid, Only Believe, doesn't seem to be my door right now, because I've watched it several times, and no insights have jumped out at me, begging to be blogged about. Now, I'm sure that there are many fantastic insights in that talk, and if those insights stand out to you when you read of watch that talk, that's great, but those don't seem to be the insights I need right now. Either that, or I haven't been listening with the Spirit.

Having prayed and listened one last time, I did hear one insight I could share. When Jerusalem was captured by Babylon (or at least, one of the times when that happened; I think it happened more than once), Daniel was carried away captive, to be instructed in "the language, laws, religion, and science of the worldly Babylon." However, he stayed true to his faith and religion, and when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon demanded that his wise men interpret a dream of his or be put to death, Daniel still had the spiritual power he needed to receive personal revelation and interpret the dream.

President Uchtdorf mused on how easy and convenient it would have been for Daniel to accept the teachings of Babylon, or at least pretend to.

He could have set aside the restrictive code of conduct God had given the children of Israel. He could have feasted on the rich foods provided by the king and indulged in the worldly pleasures of the natural man. He would have avoided ridicule.

He would have been popular.

He would have fit in.

And he would have been cut into pieces when he had the rest of the "wise men" of Babylon failed to interpret King Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Instead of easy disobedience, Daniel chose the path of difficult discipleship, and that choice saved his life and the lives of his friends. Applying this message to us, President Uchtdorf said:

The ancient city of Babylon is in ruins. Its splendor is long gone. But Babylon’s worldliness and wickedness live on. Now it falls to us to live as believers in a world of disbelief. The challenge is ours to daily practice the principles of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and to live true to God’s commandments. We will have to stay calm under peer pressure, not be impressed by popular trends or false prophets, disregard the ridicule of the ungodly, resist the temptations of the evil one, and overcome our own laziness.

 It won't be easy for us, just as it wasn't easy for Daniel, but thankfully, our lives aren't likely to depend on whether or not we live righteously. However, our eternal lives do depend on it. Where we end up eternally depends entirely on how we act now. If we want to live on the highest layer of heaven in the afterlife, we need to be willing to go through a bit of discomfort now. But if we exercise the faith and courage to make the hard decisions now, the results of those choices will be a lot better than being allowed to continue to live in Babylon. If we live as disciples while we're down here on earth, we will be blessed with spiritual power and revelation, which will help us in mortality, and we will eventually be allowed to live with God.

If Daniel was able to maintain his discipleship, even while living in Babylon, we can certainly maintain our discipleship while living in the world of today.