Life and Death and Dreams

Daniel 1:1-2:23; Psalm 119:121-144; Proverbs 28:21-22

Have you ever tried to dunk a basketball? Run a 5K in 16 minutes or less? Explain quantum physics? Pretty hard. But not impossible. People—at least some people—can do these things.

Have you ever tried to interpret a language you’ve never learned? Communicate via telepathy? Interpret someone’s dream without their having told you what it was? Impossible.

Now imagine being asked to do the impossible, but told that if you can’t perform you will be killed. That’s the situation Daniel faced. King Nebuchadnezzar had dreamed something one night, and he wanted to know what it meant. But he wouldn’t tell anyone the dream:

The king replied to the astrologers, “This is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble.” – Daniel 2:5

Of course, no one could tell him what his dream was. So all his wise men were facing the execution block. Daniel couldn’t tell the king his dream, either, but he asked for time and prayed to God, along with his three friends.

During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. – Daniel 2:19a

Daniel couldn’t do the impossible any more than you or I can. But God is not a man. What is impossible for men is possible for God. And God revealed to Daniel, a mere man, the things that only God could know. Even the king’s dreams.

Father, may we remember that what is impossible for us is easy for You. May we stop trying to do what we can’t do, and instead remember to ask for Your help.