Daniel 2:28a But there is a God in heaven…
Daniel two is all about a bad dream. It was a bad dream with a good reason. God was revealing to Nebuchadnezzar and others what would come in the future. The Bible tells us that Nebuchadnezzar was troubled by this dream. Daniel 2:1 says, “And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him.”
The reason the dreams troubled him was because he owned the dream. If God had given Daniel the dream and Daniel had tried to get Nebuchadnezzar’s attention by saying, “Here is what is going to happen. Here is the dream I had,” Nebuchadnezzar might have easily dismissed Daniel. He may have put him off for months or never have spent time with his courtier. But, God gave the dream directly to Nebuchadnezzar so he was the one asking for help and guidance. He owned the dream.
He very quickly foisted this dream on his wise men, those who knew things in the kingdom. Essentially Nebuchadnezzar said, “Tell me what the dream is and what it means or I am going to destroy your homes and kill you.” The wise men said, “Tell us the dream and we will tell you what it means.” Nebuchadnezzar’s ethic was that if the wise men couldn’t tell him the past, what the dreams were, then they could not possibly tell him the future, what the dreams meant. They were just buying time. The wise men responded by saying, “Only the gods can answer this question and they don’t live around here.”
So, now the wise men owned this problem. They owned the dream. God put it on Nebuchadnezzar, and Nebuchadnezzar foisted it upon these wise men. But, when the news came to Daniel, the Bible says that Daniel asked for something that the king granted, something that the wise men had not been given. Twice the wise men had asked for more time and twice the king said no because he believed they were going to fake the answer. Daniel did not say, “Tell me what your dream was and give me time.” He said, “Don’t tell me anything. Just give me time.” What did he do with that time? He went to his friends and said, “Let’s ask God to help us.”
God revealed the dream to Daniel, for which Daniel gave God thanks. When Daniel came before the king “Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath commanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king.” He was basically saying, “No one can take this problem for you. No one knows the answer, but there is a God in heaven.” That changed literally everything.
How do you feel about your day? How do you feel about your dreams? How do you feel about your life? A truth we can learn from Daniel two is that the way you feel about your day or your life depends on who you think owns them.
Nebuchadnezzar did not get a dream from Daniel but from God. So, he was going to Daniel. He owned the dream. The wise men didn’t want the dream, but they didn’t have a choice. It was given to them. It was placed on their head. They owned the dream. But when the dream came to Daniel, Daniel said, “No one can tell you the answer to this dream, but there is a God and He will give me the answer.”
Daniel was able to sleep at night when others could not because he didn’t try to own the dream, the problem, or his life. Indeed, he realized that everything we have is given by God. God gave favor and wisdom to Daniel, and God gave the people of Israel to Nebuchadnezzar in the first place. Daniel says in this same chapter that God had given Nebuchadnezzar the kingdom and made him ruler over all.
How ironic that King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and worshipped Daniel when Daniel wasn’t the one to be worshipped. Neither was Daniel the one to despair, and neither are you. You are neither to despair nor to feel as if you do not need God. God owns the dream, the kingdom, and the future. The way you feel about your day, your life, and your dreams depends on who you believe to own them.