PUSH BUTTONS
Small Bowls and Big Bows
One of the fascinating things I have observed in life is the seeming helplessness individuals manifest in the face of compromise, especially when the stakes are high. It often feels like the pressure to give in, is always higher than the strength to withstand the temptation. But how do people become strong? How can believers inoculate themselves against the evil day? How really does God deliver us from temptation? How do we ensure that when the day of adversity comes, our strength does not fail?
Well, I discovered a mystery!
I realised that ever before there is a pressure to bow, a bowl will be presented. The objective of the bowl is to suppress your sensitivities so that when the demand to bow comes, you will lack any form of resistance against that demand. Only those who weren’t fraternizing with the bowl, will be capable of defying the command to bow. You can’t eat of the bowl and suddenly choose not to bow when the demand is made. I hope you see the carcass and the eagle dynamic at play here?
Nebuchadnezzar will not present the golden image to you, the first time you meet with him: he knows better than to create a possibility for your rejection. He always wants to make sure that when the golden image is set up, you wouldn’t have any resistance left in you. So he initiates a system where you become less and less sensitive to what you’re already permitting into your space in incremental doses, then once he’s done desensitising you, he presents the golden image and can guarantee your obeisance.
It took the Hebrew boys who refused the bowl of Nebuchadnezzar to also refuse to bow to his golden image. No one can really fake boldness in the face of a dire situation! You either have it or you don’t: and you don’t build convictions on the day of trial! You refuse to bow, by refusing the bowl!
So here are some differences between the bowl and the bow.
The bow often has high stakes attached and bowing typically shows an outright rejection of God;
The bowl, on the other hand, is a low-stake “rationalisable” compromise, and eating of the bowl hardly seems like defying God outrightly. It’s just a little deviation, a little searing of the conscience, a little silencing of your morality, just a little. I mean, will God want you dying of hunger in a strange land? And what does God want for His children if not the best? The best food, clothes, houses and education! Right? After all, kings will become my nursing fathers, innit?? How dare I reject the delicate nursing of this faithful father Nebu??
I know you’re more concerned about the big bow, but I’ll say, be more worried about the small bowls.
There are two kinds of slavery:
One where Pharaoh oppresses the people with hardship, suffering and high levels of human rights violation. The other is one where Nebuchadnezzar exalts the status of the slaves to elite levels. He gives them degrees, grants them access to limitless funds, appoints them to high offices and makes them sit at his table. Both models are expressions of slavery, only that one is a lot more sophisticated. Both Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar had the same objective; Worship!
They both wanted worship from God’s people. Pharaoh deprived the children of Israel from worshipping their God, because he was receiving that worship in the meantime. Nebuchadnezzar was going to inevitably introduce the golden image for worship as well. It’s easy to spot the dysfunction in Pharaoh’s model of slavery, but do we even notice when Nebuchadenzzar’s sophisticated model creeps in?
We see it in the West, with radical left ideologies that promote the ultimate extinction of the human species in the form of fluid gender ideologies, gender-affirming surgeries, passing abortion bills, etc. Things that tend to the reduction and cessation of the human species. Policies that ensure we don’t continue, being peddled by universities and across the entire landscape of the educational institutions. They’re often peddled in nice psychological bowls of diversity, equity and inclusion. Where campuses have been turned into radicalisation arenas. Where bowls are being served, so that the day the Golden Image is presented, there’s no resistance left for defiance.
If it is when the golden image is set up, you want to start practicing how to stand and defy the king, you lie. Even your whole body knows you lie. You would be the first to hit the ground at the first blast of the cornet because your immune system has been so compromised, it lacks the ability to resist anything!
If you ask me, I’ll say the enemy serves more bowls than he builds golden images: and too many of us run hastily to his table to devour the dainties. Yes, the GI (Golden Image) is the grand objective, but he needs a big stage for the GI. Maybe an Olympic Games opening ceremony! You don’t see GIs every day, at least not on that scale… but you see the bowls every day.
The bowls are the permissibles but the inexpedient! The things you often respond to with “it’s not much of a big deal…” those are the bowls. They are actually the big deals!! The bowls sponsor the bows!
In some cases, the GI may never show up as a GI, it may just be a series of bowls, where just one additional bowl tips over the balance of self-sabotage.
Master the bowls! Say no to them! They’re not there to make you feel at “home”, they’re there to make you bow! Understand it for what it truly is. There is hospitality and there is radicalisation for an agenda. Nebuchadnezzar is not being nice when he serves you his bowls of exotic meals, he is preparing your knees for the bow.
And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king’s meat, and of the wine which he drank: so nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand (bow) before the king. — Daniel 1:5 (KJV)
But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Then said Daniel to Melzar, whom the prince of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink. — Daniel 1:8, 11–12 (KJV)
The long hours on social media, the unproductive working hours, binge-watching movies that don’t edify, the devout commitment to the show that we all know is about to start… knowing their names, following their bickerings and shameful fights and partnering with them to evict their “siblings” from their famous big brother’s house, even buying cars for them… these are the bowls. You don’t have to be sinister to bow to the GI, you only need to be naive to bow. It might not be sinful to eat of the bowl, but will I be able to stand against the worship of another god when the cornet sounds?
It’s no shock that it was only Daniel and his friends who could refuse to bow to the GI. We see why, the power to not bow, does not come by a whim: they nursed that power everyday by refusing the incremental doses of desensitisation.
Thou, O king, hast made a decree, that every man that shall hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, shall fall down and worship the golden image: and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth, that he should be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. — Daniel 3:10–12 (KJV)
Don’t bow, you will not burn!
Have an amazing week!
God bless your heart!
Dami Oguntunde
IG/Twitter(X): @damioguntunde
Push Buttons is a weekly devotional of The Powerpoint Tribe.
