Using Your Spiritual Gifts In The Marketplace Series

Singing the Songs of The Lord In a Strange Land October 24, 2004

Daniel 2

Using Your Spiritual Gifts In the Marketplace

In the sphere of life that you spend most of your life and energy (work, family, school, sport…) have you ever come up against something that was impossible to solve?

Read Daniel 2

The Problem:

Nebuchadnezzar is having a bad dream – the same bad dream each night. & it is leading him to distraction – he is afraid to go to sleep, because he knows that the disturbing dream will be there, when he does sleep, it is fitful, and he wakes up in a cold sweat because of the same dream.

So he goes to his shrink – his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers and asks them to interpret his dream – they say, “Great, tell us the dream!” They’re confident, because interpreting dreams is what they are trained to do. If they can’t do it off the top of their head, they’ve got books and charts and other means of divination that will help them interpret. And if they get it wrong, how will the king know?

“Great, tell us the dream!”

The king says, “No.”

We’re not told why he says no – it could be that he can never remember the dream in his waking – that would tick you off, sleep disturbed by a dream that you cant remember! Or he could be in a sour mood due to his sleep deprivation, and he’s fed up with incompetent magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers, so he wants to test them to see if they are the real thing.

When they ask for the dream, he says, “you tell me, or you and everyone you love will die in a most painful way. I’ll even rip down your houses and turn them into dust so that you will leave no legacy or sign that you once lived”

And you thought you had a bad boss!

Has the impossible ever been asked of you at work? At the cost of your job? Have you ever been asked to know something unknowable, ever been asked to make bricks without straw?

I was reminded of that movie “Glengarry, Glen Ross” When Alec Baldwin comes into the sales office and berates the salesmen for not making any sales when they have been given terrible leads to work with, and he says first prize for sales this month is a Cadillac, second prize is a set of steak knives, third prize is “you’re fired”

Daniel’s Response:

Ariach the executioner comes knocking on Daniel’s door and explains the situation. “Sorry, old chap, but I’ll be killing you now.”

Daniel goes to the king and asks for some time.

Prayer

He comes back home & gathers his friends and they pray.

I might pray while gathering my stuff to make a dash for the boarder! But they pray and only pray.

They know that it is only God that can get them out of this mess. They know that only God’s wisdom can reveal the mysteries of life.

I think that Christian or not, our usual response to an impossible situation in everyday life is either to go to work – get busy even if it isn’t solving the problem.

When we get busy to solve the impossible it is saying not, “In God we trust,” but, “in me we trust.”

We get busy or we get whiney – like the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers

Daniel prays. Daniel gets his friends to pray.

When we come up against a brick wall at work, as Christians, our first response should be to pray – the knife is at Daniel’s throat and he leans fully and completely on God. They go to God, not demanding the interpretation, but asking for mercy, that God will save their lives

We need to be supernatural people – not just in church, or in our daily devotions, but in our toughest situations.

Psalm 46 is a battle song – the imagery is all about battles and defenses, but in the middle of the battle, God says

10 "Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth."

God answers their prayers almost immediately – Daniel is given a vision of what the king dreamt, and the dream’s interpretation.

Thanksgiving

Daniel doesn’t run right out and save his life – he first gives thanks. And it is not a short “thanks”

"Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever;

wisdom and power are his.

21 He changes times and seasons;

he sets up kings and deposes them.

He gives wisdom to the wise

and knowledge to the discerning.

22 He reveals deep and hidden things;