Nebuchadnezzar never lacked for confidence. Even in his dreams he managed to rule the world. Daniel interpreted a dream for the king after the Lord revealed both the dream and the explanation to him, thus pacifying Nebuchadnezzar, and saving the lives of all the king’s magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers (if I ever become an all-powerful king, I’ll keep a whole passel of these folks around).

I’ve read this story over and over, but this time I picked up a new detail. The kingdoms in the dream eventually crashed and scattered, then become like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace.

Great palaces and kings and armies and temples, the envy of their epochs, ground to dust and blown away. Reminds me of these lines from the poem Ozymandias by Shelley:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

If great kingdoms pass on to dust, how much more my feeble efforts? Three things last forever—God, the Word of God, and the souls of people. I’m best served to invest my time and talents in those directions.

Follow God, invest in the scriptures, serve and enjoy the people around me. These acts form the basis for a life of influence that lasts. All the rest blows away in the wind.

Daniel 2 in week forty-six of reading the Bible cover to cover

Photo by Hana El Zohiry