“I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up to heaven. My sanity returned, and I praised and worshiped the Most High and honored the one who lives forever. His rule is everlasting, and his kingdom is eternal… He does as he pleases among the angels of heaven and among the people of the earth. No one can stop him…” Daniel 4:34-35.
Lord Jesus, this familiar story lands on our hearts as a timely mercy-bomb, Gospel-grenade, grace-lift, and sanity-maker. Every time we begin to doubt a good future for our world—or a future at all, you send us to your Word, illumine us by your Spirit, and speak centering truth to our hearts. Thank you.
Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego got to see you turn Nebuchadnezzar’s lions into purring kittens, and his 7-fold hot furnace-flames became like 7 battery-operated candles. Their world did not immediately change, but along with Nebuchadnezzar, they were reminded only you are King and only your Kingdom is eternal. You weren’t just the 4th man in the furnace with Daniel’s 3 friends; you were/are the only Ruler of the cosmos.
Appropriately, there is so much going on in our country and world right now that drives us “batty,” bonkers, and nuts. But may those very things drive us a little further—like all the way to you, Jesus. For you are already “ruler of the kings of the earth” (Rev.1:5)—seated and sovereign over heaven’s angels, the devil’s worst, earth’s everything, and the rest of our stories. That does not make life easy; but it makes us yours and that’s all that really matters.
Jesus, thank you for always doing as you please—not as we pray, beg, and claim. Turn our fears into faith, our mourning into dancing, and our sweaty palms into joyful hands lifted to you in worship and extended to others in service. So Very Amen.
