Devotion - Tuesday, April 21

If you are keeping up in your reading of Daniel, you know that much has happened.  This morning's assigned reading is Daniel 4:28-37.

While King Nebuchadnezzar is pleased that Daniel and his friends knew his dream and were able to offer an interpretation, it seems he soon forgot.  When the King chooses to set up a golden idol to himself, and Daniel's three friends refuse to bow down to the idol, the King becomes angry and commands them to be thrown into the fiery furnace.  This is a story often repeated - how the fire did not harm them.  Nebuchadnezzar is moved and orders that no one is to speak ill of the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

Then the King has another dream, which Daniel interprets.  This one tells the King that he will lose everything; including his sanity.  Daniel is troubled when he gives the interpretation to the King.  In today's reading, all this unfolds.

The end of today's reading includes a conversion of King Nebuchadnezzar.  He turns to the heaves and his sanity is restored. 

That is a lot of review, but it leads to my point:  Who would have thought it possible that the King would come to share the faith of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego?  How could such a change come upon the King of Babylon?  And who would have thought that to have happened as a result of the actions of four young lads, ripped from their homes and families in Jerusalem?

And, it all came to pass, are a response to the four of them faithfully living their lives.  They refused to compromise what they knew to be the instructions of their God.  They would not set aside the traditions and customs so important to the descendants of Abraham.  

The world cannot help but be changed as a result of the faithful witness of God's followers.  The world cannot withstand the impact of such persons.  It is tempting for God's followers to compromise and to allow this little thing or that little bit slip or slide.  God may not be the one most grievously affected by such copulation; what is most likely to be altered is the impact a faithful life could have on the world.  

How knows?  Who could have know?  It is the faithful life of a few young lads which brings such a change in the life of the man who had besieged Jerusalem and carried off the vessels of the house of God.  What impact can your one precious life have?  Only God knows - it is true.  But only you can discover.