Wednesday, January 29
Read Daniel 4:34-37. How, and why, do things change for the king?
God allows Nebuchadnezzar to be stricken by a strange disease, but eventually He readily restores him to a sound mental state. Interestingly, everything changes when, at the end of the seven years predicted by the prophet, the ailing king lifts up his eyes to heaven (Daniel 4:34).
“For seven years Nebuchadnezzar was an astonishment to all his subjects; for seven years he was humbled before all the world. Then his reason was restored and, looking up in humility to the God of heaven, he recognized the divine hand in his chastisement. In a public proclamation he acknowledged his guilt and the great mercy of God in his restoration.” Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 520
No question, great changes can happen when we lift our eyes to heaven. As soon as his understanding comes back, the king gives evidence that he has learned this lesson.
But this story is not as much about Nebuchadnezzar as it is about the mercy of God. The king has missed three previous opportunities to accept the God of Israel as the Lord of his life. Such occasions are available to him when he recognizes the exceptional wisdom of the four young Judean captives (Daniel 1), when Daniel interprets his dream (Daniel 2), and when the three Hebrew men are rescued from the fiery furnace (Daniel 3). After all, if that rescue doesn’t humble him, what will? In spite of the ruler’s stubbornness, God gives him a fourth chance, finally wins the king’s heart, and restores him to his royal office (Daniel 4). As the case of Nebuchadnezzar illustrates, God gives one chance after another in order to restore us to a right relationship with Him. As Paul writes many centuries later, the Lord “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). We see in this story a powerful example of that truth.
What are ways that you have been humbled by God? What did you learn from the experience? What changes might you need to make in order to avoid having to get taught the lesson again?
