Daniel was the forgotten servant of God. It took the queen mother to remind King Belshazzar that Daniel was full of God’s wisdom. This incident began when King Belshazzar held a great feast where he drank wine with his nobles, wives, and concubines. While consuming wine, the king ordered that gold cups taken from the Temple in Jerusalem be brought to him so they could drink from them. While they drank wine from these glasses and praised their idols, they saw fingers of a human handwriting on the plaster wall.
Gripped by fear, the king summoned his enchanters, astrologers, and fortune-tellers to tell him what it meant, but they could not. This commotion was so great that it reached the king’s mother, who hurried to the banquet hall.
Daniel 5:11 There is a man in your kingdom who has within him the spirit of the holy gods. During Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, this man was found to have insight, understanding, and wisdom like that of the gods. Your predecessor, the king—your predecessor King Nebuchadnezzar—made him chief over all the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and fortune-tellers of Babylon.[1]
Look For People God Has Placed in Your Life
The entire time King Belshazzar was king, he could have had ongoing guidance from Daniel, whom his grandfather greatly respected. Instead, the king went his own way and lived apart from God. Unfortunately, that very night, he saw the handwriting on the wall, and the Persians killed him.
How many people in the world are like King Belshazzar in some way? Some people in your life could give godly guidance but have been ignored. Don’t wait until it is too late to seek out godly people. As we humble ourselves before God and pray for His help, you will be amazed at who God will bring into your life. It could be someone who has been there all along, but you did not want to listen to them. God is all about new beginnings, and when we repent of our sins and turn toward God, He forgives and restores us.
God’s Faithful Servants
My dad’s father was not much of a churchgoer throughout his life. In his mid-seventies, he was paralyzed by a stroke. Although it was difficult for him to speak, he could still understand all that was happening around him. A few years after his stroke, the Lord brought a caretaker into his life, a wonderful Christian woman. She shared the good news of Jesus with him and brought cassette tapes for him to listen to God’s word. She was God’s faithful servant who, in God’s mercy, came to my grandfather and changed his life and his eternal destiny.
Sometimes, our circumstances awaken us to our need for God, and often, God places people around us to help us at the right time. Do you need God’s help? Don’t be surprised if God has someone in your circle that will help you. To learn about the forgotten servant of God, listen here:
https://podpoint.com/light-of-christ-church-podcast/handwriting-on-the-wall
[1] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Da 5:11). Tyndale House Publishers.