Never in my life have I told someone to meet me at a location without knowing where it was. Nor have I promised money to someone without having it first. Ask me to predict the future or read your mind and I’d laugh in your face. These things just don’t happen in everyday life. It’s impossible.
In the second chapter of the book of Daniel, we meet a young man who takes on the impossible. The kid is absolutely out of his mind. There, I said it. He’s crazy! Read the story- you’ll see. I’ll try my best to paraphrase it for you. (Click Here to Read for Yourself)
God’s people have been completely overthrown by the Babylonians, who seek out the best and brightest of young men to train at the palace as King Nebuchadnezzar’s apprentices. This kid Daniel and his buddies have already found favor with the King’s chief guard but now everything changes. The King is now demanding that someone interprets this weird dream he had AND he refuses to describe the dream first.
Talk about ridiculous expectations! The most revered of the Babylonians can’t do it, so because of this- the king wants to kill all of the wise men in the kingdom including Daniel and his friends! What a psychopath! Daniel hears about this and decides to set up a meeting with the king for the following day, saying he’ll deliver on the dream and it’s interpretation so nobody has to die.
Here’s where the story really grabs me.
Daniel asked for time with the king (vs 16) BEFORE the dream had been revealed to him. Talk about a tight spot.
The more I read this story- I thought about my teacher friends. I thought what impossible tasks the kings of this world are laying on them today. My mind wondered about friends of mine who have littles they’re sending back to school or teaching at home, virtually. How in the world will they be able to pull this off? Who will give them the answers on how to proceed?
Something we can learn from this story is this:
When asked to interpret the impossible, Daniel started trusting God immediately.
The great thing about this kid is that he wasted no time. He started trusting God immediately. It wasn’t like he had time to go home and figure it out first. He heard they were going to start killing people, and he threw himself at the mercy of God. So many of us would immediately start looking for someone to blame, or we’d start groveling about the insane expectations our bosses or our families have placed on us.
If we were Daniel, most of us would have pleaded for mercy! And Daniel did plead for mercy. Just not at the feet of who you’d expect.
“Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. During the night, the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision.” (vs17-19)
Can you imagine that night? He goes home and tells his three buddies. “So… yeah… King Neb wants to axe us… like, with an actual axe...because no one could tell him what he dreamt last night… but it’s totally ok… because I told him… I could do it. So now we need to start praying for God to tell us what this guy’s dream was!” Imagine their faces! I bet they threw Daniel into bed, started playing some zen music on the harp and lyre, and sang Rockabye Danny all night long. What if on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, Shadrack stubbed his toe and woke Daniel up? Well, we might’ve had a different story on our hands. But here’s what happened.
God reveals the dream and it’s interpretation to Daniel in his sleep, so he was able to go to the king the very next day and deliver on his promise! God was made great in the eyes of King Nebuchadnezzar and so many lives were spared! The king even went as far as promoting Daniel and his friends in their positions!
While there’s no distinct timeline on God’s promises or His purpose in our lives, there are a myriad of opportunities that we waste while trying to figure things out on our own. Why did Daniel trust God immediately? Because God ACTS immediately- though not always in the way you’d think.
If you’re struggling to find hope in your impossible circumstances, let me remind you that we serve a God who’s best in tight spots. No other God can do what he does. Not even Amazon Prime, while heaven sent, can keep up with how our God delivers. So we can’t afford to waste time. Don’t wait until you’ve exhausted yourselves to call on God for help. Say with a passion “my God can do it!” and walk in faith.
What if the next time your boss sends out another email that leaves you groaning, you decide to trust God immediately? Print it out and write DONE on it. Decide then and there that your God is standing with you just as He did Daniel, when he went before the king. See, the wise men of Babylon said no god could do what the king had asked. Vs 11 “they do not live among men”. I can imagine whenever Daniel was before the King, the presence of God was upon Daniel and God was peering over his shoulder saying “tell em’, boy. Show them who I am.” What an amazing thing it is, to have a God who not only sends us out- but stands beside us while we do it!
May we take every impossible moment and claim it for the Lord’s glory in our lives- so that others may know that our God is a God who delivers the impossible!
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