Daniel 2

Sometimes I have a dream that leaves me in a certain kind of mood when I wake up. For example, those really sad dreams where someone real close to you dies or a best friend is taken away from you for some unknown reason. These are dreams where I cry harder than I have ever cried in real life. I usually wake up from those feeling overwhelmingly sad. It is worse though because nothing in reality actually happened, it was all in my head. I strongly dislike those feelings that I get and cannot shake. I am assuming that each of you have experienced some kind of emotion because of a dream you had. It is not always sad though, some can leave you happy but disappointed it was not real, while others can make you think and even help you learn something. Well, we know that in Daniel’s time, God often used dreams to speak to people. Nebuchadnezzar was not a follower of the one true God. Why would a dream leave him feeling urgent to discover the meaning of it? How did he even know it had importance? The interpretation of the dream could be a whole different lesson, I encourage you to study it on your own if you have the chance. For today though, I am going to talk about the happenings around the dream. I hope none of you mind but I am going to give you some of the same points that Beth Moore uses in her study on Daniel. In the first verse we can read that the dreams left his spirit troubled and his sleep left him. Most likely he woke up in a sweat and rapid, deep breathes. These are the dreams we desperately wish to forget but usually cannot. Which leads us to the next reason why the king wanted to know the interpretation; his sleep left him. He could not go back to sleep after waking up. Good ol' Nebuchadnezzar used every means he knew how to figure this out. In his desperation he threatens the lives of all the wise men of Babylon. Magicians, conjurers, sorcerers and Chaldeans were all brought before him to tell the dream and the interpretation. These wise guys even admitted that only the gods could do such a thing. Little did they know that only The God was capable of such a task. He ordered the wise men to be cut to pieces. Because of Daniel's tact, faith and fervent prayers, the wise men were saved. God revealed the dream and the meaning to Daniel, who in turn was able to tell the king. Daniel is sure to give the credit to God, so that the king may see His power. I would have never thought of this until I read it from Beth Moore: had a prophet simply just told the king what was to come, he would not have believed it and would have not seen God's power. We all know that God could have used any means to get to Nebuchadnezzar, but this was such a cool way. Since Daniel was able to tell him what the dream was and the meaning, the king really listened and was able to see a glimpse of how mighty our God is. He wanted the King to be involved in this story for him to see. After Daniel tells him these things the King even confesses that Daniel's God is a God of God's and the master revealer.

-- Kristi Smith, Summer Camp Manager