The Upside of Being Downcast--Encouragement from an Ancient Poet (Psalm 42-43)

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Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my salvation and my God. (Psalm 43:5)

During this season of social distancing and even strict quarantine, there is considerable concern regarding the psychological impact of isolation in addition to the more widespread anxieties of the Covid-19 crisis. Many have lost their jobs; others can no longer visit family for fear of spreading exposure to the more vulnerable among us. 

Outside the local Costco. Photo Credit: Greg Dueker

I work at a Christian University and Seminary and we are currently teaching remotely and doing our best to reach out and check in with our students regularly. But I miss seeing them in class, out on the campus lawn, or in the cafeteria. Even the library is quieter than normal (if you can imagine that). All this combined with the hoarder-induced shortages of TP, sanitizer, vegetables, and most carbs (rice, beans, pasta, bread), can produce turmoil in our souls. But will we look down or up for the hope our soul so desperately needs?

In Psalm 42-43 (which are generally thought to make up one psalm), the writer uses a common refrain where he addresses his own soul and directs it to trust in God. This psalm might have been written during David’s exile during the rebellion of Absalom, or later during the Babylonian exile, or as Peter Craigie suggests, “it is equally possible that the background is to be found in sickness, which limited the poet’s  possibility of going to Jerusalem and participating in the worship in the temple.”[1] 

Currently, this hits pretty close to home for most churches in the US.

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We live in just such a time filled with challenging circumstances and difficult directives as the various levels of our government pursue policies put in place to slow the insidious spread of Covid-19. Yet even as the virus captures our attention, nature’s other outbursts are not abated be it tornados, floods, or earthquakes.

Some people are overwhelmed by the darkness they see. Others recognize that darkness is the necessary precursor to the coming of light. If we never experience the dark how then will we long for the light? Psalm 43:3-4 contains the prayer of the one who was downcast in the darkness. Do these ancient words of prayer resonate with our heart’s cry today?

Send out your light and your truth;
    let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
    and to your dwelling!
Then I will go to the altar of God,
    to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre,
    O God, my God.   (Psalm 43:3-4)

These psalms were written by, or for, the sons of Korah who served as doorkeepers and worship leaders in the Temple of the Lord. Their cry to the Lord was that he would bring them back to the place where they were called to serve. They realized that, for whatever reason, they were no longer in that spot. I would argue that their season of difficulty, whether sourced in an attack of an enemy or their own sin was being shaped into a gift in the hands of the Lord who loves steadfastly! My pastor used to say, “Don’t despise that which drives you to your knees.” Whatever causes us to lean into the Lord’s love, and extend that love to others, is ultimately a cause for gratitude.

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In the history of Israel and the history of the Christian church, there have been great feasts celebrated regularly, but the problem in modern times is that we too often cast off the fasts that precede them. Wisdom, and experience, teach that we appreciate and celebrate the light better after we have experienced the darkness. We need the longing season of Advent before the celebration of Christmas. We need the confessional season of Lent before the victorious joy of Easter. Even in the progression of the natural seasons, after a long hot summer, we need the cold and dark of winter before we will enjoy a sunny and warm spring day to its fullest! Isaiah 42:16 declares the Lord’s promised plan for his people on the other side of the darkness…

And I will lead the blind

  in a way that they do not know,

  in paths that they have not known    

      I will guide them.

      I will turn the darkness before them into light,

                     the rough places into level ground.

These are the things I do,    

                          and I do not forsake them. 

(See also: Isaiah 42:6-7; 9:1-2; Matt. 4:14-16)

But those who will not trust in the Lord will see their idols destroyed (Isaiah 42:17).

As we read through Psalm 42-43, we find that it is chock-full of lessons applicable to our lives as we walk through the current circumstances we face. Despite being ordered to responsibly practice “social distancing” we can still digitally join our hearts together around the Lord and his word. I hope that we will take time each day to reflect on God’s written word, the Bible, and share his love displayed there with others.

To do just that, allow me to share nine truths that can be found especially in times of hardship and our downcast seasons of darkness…

1. Hardship often reveals our deepest thirst and gives us an opportunity to admit it (42:1-2). Have we seen enough of the world to know that it doesn’t, and can’t satisfy our deepest longings?
2. Hardship may open us up to criticism from others, those who love “piling on” when someone else is suffering, adding insult to injury (v. 3,10). I am reminded of Jesus’ words to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). Times like this will give us opportunities to grow in this regard.
3. Hardship reminds us how much we miss celebrating the goodness of God with our spiritual family (v. 4). Thankfully, we have the technology to reach across the distance and join in spiritual worship and acts of service.
4. Hardship often increases our sense of isolation (v. 4) but the more we think of others, and check in on them (phone, text, email, social media) the less isolated we will be, even when confined to our home.
5. Hardship gives us the opportunity to do some soul searching and some soul instructing. (42:5, 11; 43:5)
6. Dark times move us out past our powerless pride to put our hope in the Lord (v.5-6). In 2 Cor. 1:8-10, the Apostle Paul described this experience clearly.
7. For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. 
8. Amid dark and tumultuous times, we may become more sensitive to the presence of God and his steadfast love (v.7-8). The more distractions are removed, the more quiet we encounter, the more we dwell in his Word, and the less we can lean on our own strength the more we see him at work. Pro tip: Don’t watch more news than you can cover in prayer!
9. In dark and tumultuous times, we can ask God honest questions about where he is in all that we face. We feel he is far away, but what encouragement can we offer our own souls? (v.11) “Put your hope in God!” He is our covenant-keeping Savior!
10. In times of hardship, we can confess our weakness and choose to trust God to deliver us from the oppressor (43:1-3).

Sabbath in Modern Tiberius

One other comment before I close. Even good things need to have fallow seasons of pruning and rest in preparation for new seasons of fruitfulness. It makes me wonder since this current crisis is in effect imposing a sabbath rest on the land. While the imposition of a required sabbatical season is not the cause of this shutdown, perhaps that is how the Lord may use this terrible pandemic for good. if we will hope in him.

We are a nation that refuses to stop whatever it is that we are doing. Yet, being forced to stop, to pause, to trust it will work out, will we continue to be downcast, angry, fearful, and divided, or will our souls be counseled by this psalm to hope in God? Will we trust that we will once again join our voices together to praise Jesus for the salvation he brings to share? I hope so!

How we live and engage those we live with, will reveal both our heart and our source of hope… for better or worse!

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. (2 Cor. 1:8-10)

[This post is also published on my Honest2God Psalms blog. If you are interested in more posts based on the Psalms, feel free to follow the link.]

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[1] Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50, Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 19, (Waco, TX: Word Inc., 1983) 325.

Arresting Ministerial "Stop and Frisk"?

[This post was originally published on my pastoral advocacy blog called the Cupbearers Initiative, however, it has wider application than just pastors. It has to do with how we look at the world and how we engage those that we perceive as "other."]
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Since this is primarily a blog to support and encourage pastors and other ministry leaders, I like to be real about some of the issues we face. This post addresses one such issue.

A Dangerous Practice 

Photo: Creative Commons

One of the dangers faced by those of us in ministry leadership is having a “stop and frisk” mentality. I am referring to the well-known practice employed by Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Police (and many other agencies) in an approach to reducing their horrific violent crime and murder rates. They did so by stopping, questioning, and frisking people on the street to confiscate illegal weapons. While the policy arguably did reduce murder rates, it led to significantly unjust racial profiling and harmed the already tenuous relationship of communities of color with the police.

Photo: Greg K. Dueker

In this post, I am using “stop and frisk” as a metaphor to describe what happens when a shepherd’s heart is either lifted up in prideful self-righteousness or wounded by the pain, suffering, and trauma others have inflicted upon those they love. I have been one of those shepherds. As leaders, we don’t want to see the people we care for hurt so we can easily go into “protect mode” failing to remember that we have been called to love our enemies too. Our attitude can quickly become bounded by “us/them” feelings, thoughts, and words that lead to unwelcoming actions. We can become more about circling the wagons into a safe defensive perimeter that we fail to reach out in love and understanding (even in disagreement) to our neighbors. Jesus reminds us repeatedly that safety is not the highest value in the kingdom. When you read the previous statement, what verses come to your mind? I have my working list, but I prefer to let you develop your own.

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I remember a season, early in my marriage and my ministry, that while I was not actually stopping and frisking people on the street, I was ready to do so. I had become hyper-vigilant in a misguided effort to reduce the human damage caused by lawbreaking. I viewed strangers as suspects until they could prove otherwise. Though I was not deployed in any military conflict, I became quite good at real-time threat assessment in order to protect those I loved and to meet the challenge of the spiritual conflict that swirled around us.

The problem with this approach is that it loves people very selectively if at all. It does not love “others” as Jesus taught us to love. A probing question we should answer is, have we received the love of God so that we are content to keep it to ourselves, sharing only when seekers come and ask? Or, has the love of God so transformed our hearts and lives that we cannot help but share that steadfast love freely with others?

Wrestling Matches or Missional Welcome

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While there is a very real spiritual battle surrounding us, we must remember that our weapons are not of this world and we are not to use the world’s methods when contrary to the scriptures (e.g., 2 Cor. 10:3-4). It seems to me that we are prone to compartmentalize this concept, limiting its declaration as applying only to literal weapons such as assault rifles, tanks, dirty bombs, and drone strikes.

Photo: Randy Fath on Unsplash

As Christian leaders who take the Bible seriously, we know that the kingdom of God is not established by the coercive force of human weapons but through sacrificial love (John 18:36; Rev. 12:11). We would certainly not want to commit again the sins of the Spanish Conquistadors and the accompanying Inquisition. However, do we engage those outside the church, or those from other churches, using the thinking processes of the world as a weapon? Paul writes in this passage that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood” (Eph. 6:12) so while we don’t physically throw all the seekers, skeptics, and schemers against the wall and frisk them for weapons, we may do something even worse. We can desecrate the holy encounters God gives us with people when we treat them more like confrontations than conversations, more like wrestling matches against wrong thinking than really hearing and entering into a human story, and then topping it off by justifying our confrontational approach as “striving against sin.” Sometimes we need to be reminded that “the anger of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God” (James 1:20; Prov. 29:22).

People want to be seen, heard, understood, and valued. Any ministerial stop-and-frisk ideology will hinder the type of outwardly focused love that best represents the way the Trinity shares their goodness with all creation. Stop-and-frisk processes remove the merciful welcome of hospitality. A mortal sin in the ancient world. These suspicious and confrontational approaches can make evangelism and gospel ministry more like a mugging than relational ministry. I would even suggest that we see conversion, and the larger discipleship process, as less transactional and more about the Spirit-led journey towards full faith in Jesus Christ.

Seeing Past the Edge of the Earth

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It is normal for us to draw lines and make judgments. We engage and do life together with those people who are enough like us to dwell inside our circumscribed borders of us/them, the flat earth of our own making. We need Jesus’ to open our eyes to see beyond the edge of the earth with which we are comfortable. We need eyes to see and ears to hear as he does because his love is not constrained by our limitations.

What do we see when we look at others? How do we spiritually profile them? There was a time when Saul of Tarsus and others considered Jesus just a carpenter’s son. They could not see his true identity. We do the same thing when we fail to recognize that each person we meet is an image-bearer (whether they know it or not) and is precious in the sight of God. Saul/Paul later testified that their own attitude had been adjusted by Christ so that now, “we regard no one according to the flesh.” (2 Cor. 5:16)

Photo: Unsplash

We need to discern Christ in the least like of those we meet, humbly being ready to learn from their stories, struggles, and even their strange experiences as human parables. Will we have an ear to hear and a heart to respond? Does our perception end at the edge of our little earth? Or can we see beyond that, with eyes of faith, love, and hope what Christ intends for each person to become?

Even as many police agencies move away from stop-and-frisk tactics and embrace community policing through building positive and mutually helpful relationships, may we as evangelicals get a clue. Jeremiah 29:7 admonished the Jewish exiles to settle down and get busy, “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” We are not in exile, but our mission cannot be any less engaged in seeking the common good. As ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven, the love of Christ compels us to do so!

Can Hate Ever Be a Good Thing? (Proverbs 6:16-19)

At this time of year, we often review the major news stories of the year. Some good, some bad, some horrific. It is a season where the message of love, peace, and joy should leave us wondering how we can help to make this world a better place in the year to come for we are barraged with news stories of tragic acts of hate perpetrated against humanity. When we see attitudes and acts of hate, in the lives of others, we innately recoil in horror and condemn such as uncivilized and unacceptable. In America, we have gone so far as to establish special laws against hate crimes.

So how could we ever suggest that there is a time when hate could be good? Certainly not the kind of hate that harms or diminishes others, but what about hate that is motivated by great love and untainted wisdom?  I know it sounds strange. Yet, because God is love (1 John 4:8), and his love is steadfast and endures forever (e.g., Psalm 118:29), there are some things that the Lord hates.

King Solomon, using a uniquely Hebraic poetic style, expresses it this way…

There are six things that the Lord hates,

    seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
    and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
    feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
    and one who sows discord among brothers. (Proverbs 6:16-19)

Why does the Lord hate these attitudes and actions?

Because they hurt everyone involved. God, in His love, desires what is best and right for all his creatures.

As a result, he fiercely opposes the work of the enemy—who comes only to steal, kill and destroy—wherever it is found.

It is the Holy Spirit, manifesting the love of God, who brings conviction—the knowledge of our own failures—so that we might turn again to the healing love of God in Christ.

At Christmas, we hear the story again, of how God came to earth… not with haughty eyes, a lying tongue, or justified acts of revolution, to accomplish a greater “good”. He did not feel compelled to resort to the devil’s tactics, but instead manifested the love of God.

Do you ever wonder why we can spot hate in others so much better than we can spot it in ourselves? I have. Sometimes I think we point out the failures in others because it is safer than looking at, and dealing with, our own.

• Do we look down on others, or feel entitled to something better than them?
• Are we quick confessors, ready to authentically admit our shortcomings, or is it more natural for us to lie to cover up our indiscretions? What’s worse, do we lie to God thinking that he falls for our deceptive reasoning? He doesn’t lie and doesn’t fall for our mind tricks either.
• Do we objectify others for the sake of our own needs? Not many of us would want to literally kill someone else, but when we waste their lives for our own pleasure and comfort we are in some way “shedding innocent blood.”
• How quick are we to do what we can get away with, to profit personally at the expense of others? Is our focus on defending our “right” to do what we want even when it is evil?
• Do we inflate our own qualifications and minimize those of others? Do we curate information to produce the results we desire without regard to accuracy?
• Do we in advancing our own causes stir up an unhealthy distrust among the brothers and sisters? Do we delight in planting fake news, erecting strawman arguments, curating conspiracies, cultivating cynicism, and harvesting division? We hate those “mean girls” and “jealous guys” who make the lives of others miserable. Let us not be like them. God’s purposes are not advanced by tearing down others to exalt ourselves, but by trusting God himself to make our name great.

Thankfully, God doesn’t ask us to do what he won’t do himself. Jesus Christ was the perfect manifestation of the invisible God—in that he revealed the heart, character, and mission of God to mankind. He came humbly not choosing to draw attention to himself. He always spoke honestly never placating people for his own advantage, and he went about healing and undoing the works of death—both physically and spiritually.

His new command was that his followers might “love one another” and thus prove he had been in their midst. While truth divides, Jesus never sowed discord, but instead advocated for forgiveness and reconciliation (e.g., Matt. 5:23-24; Mark 11:25). However, for that to take place perhaps we need a bit more heavenly hate for the attitudes and acts of pride and selfishness that sprout up like weeds in the gardens of our own hearts.

What do you think?

All Creatures, All Cultures

This post was originally published on a blog focusing on a devotional approach to the Psalms Honest2God. 

However, in light of recent ongoing racial tensions, it is appropriate to be reminded that the symphony of God's people includes and embraces all creatures and all cultures.

(Image painted by Hope G Smith www.hopegsmith.com)

This means that each individual creature and culture has value.

Psalm 150:1-6

1 Praise the Lord!
   Praise God in his sanctuary;
    praise him in his mighty heavens!
2 Praise him for his mighty deeds;
    praise him according to his excellent greatness!

3 Praise him with trumpet sound;
    praise him with lute and harp!
4 Praise him with tambourine and dance;
    praise him with strings and pipe!
5 Praise him with sounding cymbals;
    praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!
   Praise the Lord!

Comments:

Wang Xi on Unsplash

Hallelujah! This is the final psalm of praise (doxology) in a string of praise psalms! More than that, this final psalm is a doxology for the entire book as well. This psalm starts with a “Hallelujah “ and ends with a “Hallelujah!” It is a very ancient Hebrew word expressing worship to Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God of Israel who is revealed in the Bible. It has been transliterated into most languages on the earth, it is a word that now transcends language and culture to express praise to the one true God, our Creator and Redeemer!

Within this inclusio (of just six verses) there are eleven more exhortations to praise the Lord.

The phrase in verse 2, "praise him according to his excellent greatness" always makes me think. What kind of praise could ever live up to that? Could our worship ever actually be "according to his excellent greatness"? Maybe one day in heaven when we can see him as he really is and have eternity to express it...but probably not till then. 

However, one way that we can begin to praise more in accord with his greatness is to allow each culture to express true praise to God from within their God-given culture, and in their God-given language. "Praise in accordance with God’s greatness" cannot be contained or monopolized by one race, within one language, one culture, or one musical style!

 

This psalm subtly makes this clear through the lists of instruments that sound like those of different cultures and generations, from the fanfare of announcing royalty and priesthood (3a) to the quiet and contemplative tones of lute and harp (3b), from the rollicking Hebraic tambourine and dance (4a) to the Celtic or Bluegrass sounding strings and pipes (4b); or even the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) head-flipping rock opera or college marching band sound of sounding cymbals and crashing cymbals (4b). Music is universal…just not the same music. So is praise. 

When we gather in heaven, we may not all be singing Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, Phil Wickham, or Hillsong, like I do, but we will join together nonetheless in that great hymn-dance of praise perfectly fitted to the greatness of our Savior. 

Could the new song that we raise be the choral tapestry of all languages, cultures, and styles singing their praise to our Triune God, blended together into one great multi-layered anthem by the love and wisdom of God? Very likely, for such is consistent with biblical teaching about the nature of the church!

I contend that these six verses also show us that, praise "according to his excellent greatness" would need to be praise that is offered everywhere, for all he is and does, on every instrument, with every living voice, from every culture and nation, with all that is in all of us! May it begin to be increasingly so in the church today and in the days to come!

This interracial and multicultural theme is echoed in the final book of the Bible, which in many ways serves as a doxology for the entire Bible and the plan of God in time and history. I will quote a couple of passages from the Book of Revelation that contain the praises of the church, that great multitude of redeemed humanity, to conclude this journey through the psalms. Amazing how familiar the language is and yet how unfamiliar the experience is to so many!

Revelation 7:9-12  ^“Hosanna!”

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”  

Revelation 19:1-2, 6-8 “Hallelujah!”

After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice 

of a great multitude in heaven, crying out,

“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,
    for his judgments are true and just;
for he has judged the great prostitute
    who corrupted the earth with her immorality,
and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”

...Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
    the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
    and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
    and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
    with fine linen, bright and pure”—

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

Hallelujah! Amen.

[See also Revelation 14:1-3 “A New Song”, and 15:2-4 “Song of Moses” for other great choruses in the Kingdom]

 

Voting for Nebuchadnezzar

[This article was originally posted on my Our Long View Blog if you want to see other messages like this.]

In last week’s message, we continued a study about glory. People were created to share in the glory of God but that all changed when man rebelled against God and sought his own glory instead. The true glory of God has been substituted, replaced with a cheap, knock-off pirated type of glory. In previous weeks, we had considered the limitations of both human and national glory. Here is a summary.

1) Human Glory Is Momentary (Psa. 39:5; 103:14; 144:4; Eccl. 3:20; Isa. 40:6-8; 1 Peter 1:24; 1 Thess. 2:6). Man’s exile from the achingly beautiful presence of true glory has too often been dealt with not through seeking reconciliation with God, but by pursuing the lesser glory that comes from other people. Man’s residual glory, having been created in the Imago Dei, has been clouded and even at his best is momentary (Psa. 39:5; 103:14; 144:4; Eccl. 3:20; 1 Peter 1:24) and not something that should be sought (1 Thessalonians 2:6). We would do well to remember that our society tends to cannibalize its celebrities.  We build people up only so that we can tear them down. As Irenaeus said, humanity's true glory is to “remain permanently in God’s service.”^[1] Why is this the true glory of humanity? Because being in a relationship with the triune God is where we find our long-sought peace, our irreducible value, and our ultimate purpose as we are invited to participate in the inter-Trinitarian life of God through the Son by the Spirit.

2) National Glory Is Temporary (Genesis 11, Isaiah 37, 2 Kings 19). The Bible tells of many nations and empires rising and falling—Babel, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, etc. They might have been impressive from a human perspective, but their power and glory were not permanent. The Bible teaches that any nation raised up by God for a purpose, which fails to give God glory by functioning justly for all may serve a temporary purpose, but is soon judged and passes from the scene of history. It is a hard truth all “superpowers” must face. We should pray Daniel’s prayer of national repentance (Daniel 9).

Then last week we considered the dangerous distinctions of self-glory in a message from Acts 12:20-24.

3) Self-Glory Is Deceptive (Acts 12:23, Rev. 18:7-8) Self-glory is not only momentary but highly deceptive, promising better than it delivers and woefully understating the true cost (e.g., Acts 12:23; Revelation 16:9; 18:7), straight from the father of lies himself. 

A powerful example of this concept is found in the life of Nebuchadnezzar recorded in Daniel 3-4.

In Daniel 3, King Nebuchadnezzar (ruler of the vast Babylonian empire) tells, in his own words, what he had learned about God through the various signs and wonders that God had worked in and around his life. Daniel 3 tells the story of Nebuchadnezzar (or “Mr. Nezzar” as he is called in the VeggieTales version) throwing Daniel’s three friends into the fiery furnace for refusing to bow down and worship the huge golden statue of the king. At the end of that narrative, the king declared,

“Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set aside the king's command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God. Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way.” (Dan. 3:28-29)

This is a statement of a greatly changed worldview... even if his despotic Near-eastern proclamation against dissent doesn't match up with the steadfast love of God revealed in the Scriptures.

Then in Daniel chapter 4, the king received another dream from the Lord which he could not understand. Daniel had interpreted the first one for him and in this case, was again enabled by the Lord to interpret the dream. This time the dream functioned as a dire pronouncement of a coming humiliation for his great pride. Nebuchadnezzar was given a slim glimmer of hope, from Daniel, if he would “break off” his iniquities through...

1. By practicing righteousness, and establishing justice for all the people in the realm. It is especially contingent upon a leader to realize that the law of the land applies to themself as a ruler and to the people.
2. By showing mercy to the oppressed. He was “to show a new sensitivity to the plight of the poor in his empire, protecting them instead of allowing the rich to exploit and oppress them.” [EBC]

If he did this, then Daniel suggested that “there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity.” It might have already been too late for Mr. Nezzar. However, he seemed to have complied for a year before looking at his vast capital and all the hanging gardens it contained and taking all the credit for himself…as politicians are wont to do. At that very moment, the justice and mercy of God were declared from heaven.

Nebuchadnezzar, 
by William Blake 1794

Daniel 4:28-33 tells the story of how  Nebuchadnezzar went on a “crazy trip” that lasted perhaps as long as seven years (There is a period in his reign that contains a gap in recorded activity from 581 to 573 BC except for the siege of Tyre which might easily have been continued in his absence) before his reason returned and he blessed God instead of himself. Not only that, but he writes of his own failures and sins of pride in his own words in Daniel 4. Just one chapter earlier he would have been the least likely candidate to give glory to the God of Israel in the eyes of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But now he declared the praise of God for all the world to hear!

Every politician is a Nebuchadnezzar, who has great power that can be used for good or for ill; who is also subject to take credit for successes while deflecting blame for failures.

I am amazed that a man who was basically the ruler of the world was humbled by the justice of God and restored by the mercy of God to the place where he could testify,

At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven,

and my reason returned to me,

and I blessed the Most High,

and    praised and honored him who lives forever,

                      for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
                    and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
   all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
    and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
    and among the inhabitants of the earth;
    and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”

…Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, 

praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, 

for all his works are right and his ways are just;

 and those who walk in pride he is able to humble. (Daniel 4:34-37)

Don't you wish our political leaders could say the same thing?

Nebuchadnezzar had a dark and violent past, he had taken the best and brightest of conquered nations captive to acculturate them to Babylonian ideals, and he had even enforced idolatrous worship. But he learned his lesson (after these seven years of exile), for the common good, and became a leader for whom I could vote. 

I have actively avoided campaigning for any particular candidate, but I am praying that our leaders today—Democrats, Republicans, Independents—will experience their own Nebuchadnezzar moment, lift their eyes towards heaven, humble themselves, and give glory to God so that they might rule well...with mercy and justice for all. 

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[1] Joel C. Elowsky, ed. John 11-21 (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture). Vol. IVb (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 176