As I told you, my church is doing a study on Daniel and as I was reading Dan 4, I realized something new from this book that I never saw before. The surprising thing is, this revelation is not about Daniel, nor his 3 friends, but it’s about the king, King Nebuchadnezzar (King N for short).

From the start of the book, King N played an important part in the story. In fact, he was personally there to witness all of God’s miracles and blessings demonstrated through Daniel and his 3 friends. You find that he saw how God blessed Daniel and his 3 friends with wisdom above all the other young men brought into his kingdom (1:19). Then he was the very reason God performed the next miracle of giving Daniel supernatural revelation of his dream (2:19) as well as the interpretation.

Next God delivered Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego powerfully from the burning flames that even killed the guards that threw them in (3:25). Finally (I read until Dan 4), God gave Daniel the revelation of King N’s dream again in Chap 4, which was a clear message that he needed to repent and put his faith in God or he will lose everything (4:27). The message cannot be any clearer than that.

But look what happened?

King N simply took God’s words (from Daniel’s mouth) and ignored it. It seemed as though he went about his daily life as though nothing has happened after the prophesy. And true to the prophesy, King N didn’t acknowledge God and lost everything before repenting.

Don’t you find it amazing that a man who had such personal encounters with the power, presence and demonstration of God can simply ignore all that and refuse to acknowledge Him as Lord? I bet that most of us will say that if we can only see one miracle, just one miracle from God, our faith will be so much strengthened and we will never doubt Him again. After reading Daniel, my question is, are you so sure?

Just like the Israelites, who witnessed God’s most awesome and spectacular miracles, who had a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide them, can abandon their faith at the first sign of difficulty or trouble. What makes us so sure we are any different?

I guess what God is trying to say to us is, there is so much more to faith than what we see or hope to see. There were and still is thousands of people whose faith in Christ is so much more secure than King N or the Israelites, who have seen and experienced God physically. Faith is truly an inner conviction, something that cannot be seen, and is so much more powerful than believing based on physical evidences. Perhaps that is why, God seems so elusive at times. He knows that revealing Himself to us in great fanfare, is not the route to increasing our trust and faith in Him. History has shown that. Rather, it is the continued quiet promptings from within us, that spurs us to seek Him more in order to hear and know what He is doing, that is what develops a strong foundation for our faith.

So next time you plead with God to show Himself in some grand display of power in order to affirm your faith, remember King N and how it was completely useless to him. Faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things unseen. Concentrate on building up your faith through the consistent dependence on Him for the small things and when huge trials come your way, you won’t need God to send lightning from heaven in order to continue believing.