Daniel 2:23 – “Humility”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²³To the God of my fathers, giving thanks and praising You, I [am];

   because You have given to me the wisdom and the power,

   and now You have made known to me what we asked from You.

   You have made known to us the matter of the king.

As I said before, this one verse might take several posts.

In regards to it, the next thought I’d like to ponder is Daniel’s humility, but, before I consider how we see it, I want to ponder why this humility is so important. Once again, where is he? He is not some monk cloistered away in a cave or even a pastor or missionary in their office. He’s not just a believer having his devotions at home. Daniel is a man who lives and works in the real world, at a secular job, under a tyrant boss, in a office full of charlatans and useless sycophants. Because he’s “in the world” he suffers the same way they do. When the king is on the warpath, Daniel’s head goes on the block, just like everyone else’s. There is no question, Daniel is “in the world,” – and that is right where Jesus wants him. As I noted before, he is literally swimming in a sea of unbelievers, of people who desperately need to know the grace and love and redemption of his God.

But Daniel is not “of the world.” He’s different. And how is he different? Can I say, one of the most important ways in which he is different is his humility? The Lord Himself says, “God resists the proud; He gives His grace to the humble” (I Peter 5:5). One of the most important ways in which believers ought to be very different in the workplace is their humility. We could talk about genuine love, about being dependable, about doing quality work, etc., but underneath it all, there had better be a genuine and growing humility. It is one of the major ways we ought to be “different.”

I need to belabor this point for just a second, because I do not believe this is at all what modern American evangelical Christianity teaches. What does it mean to be “different?” It’s all about what we wear or don’t wear, what we drink or don’t drink, our characteristic assortment of adjectives, and, above all else knowing we’re right and they’re wrong, we know the truth and they don’t, and they need to hear it from us -- just like a good little Pharisee. I remember one of their songs I would have myself approved was “Dare to be a Daniel, dare to stand alone, dare to have a purpose true, and dare to make it known.” Those words may sound good while you stand singing in church, but they are expressing the heart of a Pharisee. Words and messages like that encourage people to go into the workplace and be “militant,” to walk into work confident you’re “better” than them, to work with a chip on your shoulder. I was too long that person myself but I also got to watch other believers acting like that. I got to see how the other workers saw them, got to hear what they said about them. And it wasn’t pretty. Arrogance is never pretty, and it gets even uglier when it’s called religion. But what was lacking? Humility. How did we come across? Arrogant. And why? Because we were. Jesus wasn’t like that and when He calls us to be different, He doesn’t leave us the option to decide how we want to define it (like Pharisees always do). He means to be like Him. If we would sincerely desire to “make a difference” in our world, then we must be like the real Daniel, the one in the verses before us, and we must know something of his humility.

How do we see it? First of all, we see it in his gratitude. The Lord does something good for him, and he is immediately “thanking and praising.” We could camp on the importance of gratitude, and resolve to be more grateful, but I would suggest humility is the engine that drives gratitude. Daniel doesn’t believe he’s “better” than anyone else. He doesn’t see himself as God’s “fair-haired boy,” who obviously gets whatever he wants. Because he is genuinely humble, he doesn’t see himself as “deserving” anything. And so, when he does receive blessings, his heart naturally wells up in gratitude. This is one of the unmistakable (and very beautiful) expressions of a genuinely humble heart – to be a person who sincerely appreciates anything and everything others do for them. I would suggest this is part of why the Lord had caused Daniel’s bosses “to show favor and sympathy” to him, part of why the king found Daniel and his friends “ten times better than all the magicians in his kingdom,” and even why Arioch was willing to stand there and “explain the matter to Daniel” when his job was to cut off his head. Esther was the same way. The Bible specifically notes of her overseer Hegai, “The girl pleased him and won his favor.” Interestingly, when it came her “turn” to go to the king, we’re told “she asked for nothing other than what Hegai suggested.” Humility. Gratitude. Priceless jewels for living in a world that desperately needs to see Jesus.

Next we see his humility in his total acknowledgement that this knowledge of the king’s dream is to God’s glory and not his. He says, “ …because You have given to me the wisdom and the power, and now You have made known to me what we asked from You.” You, You, You. Daniel has no problem with in-grown eyeballs. He is in no sense “impressed with himself.” Did he just do something amazing? Yes. Does he have an ability no one else has? Yes. Was what he has just accomplished literally impossible? Yes. Did he just literally save his own and his friends’ lives? Yes. So does he deserve a medal? He doesn’t seem to think so. In fact, there’s not the slightest hint of self- adulation.  He has just acknowledged in v20 that “wisdom and power” are God’s and then in v21 that is in fact God who gives “wisdom and power” to people. Now in v22, we find that Daniel actually believes what he’s saying, because when he is found to possess “wisdom and power” he immediately attributes it to the Lord.

Herein again we see Daniel’s humility. He is living out the truth from I Cor 4:7, “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” The fact is that “every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of Lights.” All our abilities, all our successes, all our knowledge or insights, are gifts from God. Daniel knew it. So should we. And here again is a place where faith ought to make you and me different in the workplace. It is an ugly thing to see a person impressed with themself, and it is probably 1000x worse when that person has claimed to be a Christian in the workplace. In fact, in today’s world, I’m not even so sure we should be as verbal as Daniel is giving glory to God. I don’t think that is the point. Whether we say it or not, it will be apparent to everyone around if we sincerely do not take credit for our successes. The less we say, perhaps the better – let the Lord make our humility obvious to those around us. So when something “works,” when we make a sale, solve a problem, succeed in any way, let us from our very hearts acknowledge it is all a gift from God, that I am only His vessel to do good to this world, and He alone deserves the glory.

Finally, we see Daniel’s humility in his ready inclusion of his friends in his success. “…now You have made known to me what we asked from You. You have made known to us the matter of the king.” Note the “we” and the “us.” Daniel sincerely values the presence and involvement and the contribution of his friends. He sincerely believes their help was part of his success. I would suggest it is of monumental importance that we each learn not only that our successes are gifts from God but also that we’ll seldom see them come to us alone. We need the people around us. We may ourselves have unique abilities but we also need the abilities of others. I can’t do it all. I need my co-workers. I need my wife. I need my fellow Christians. It is a huge part of humility to genuinely appreciate those the Lord places around us and just how important they are to us. For myself, I can honestly say the Lord has allowed me to do some amazing things in my life. He has given me the ability oftentimes to figure out things that utterly baffle everyone else, to succeed in things others had long written off as impossible. In every one of those situations, I am thankful I can look back and say, “They couldn’t have done it without me,” but I am equally thankful to be able to say, “But I couldn’t have done it without them.” It is one of the treasures of life to succeed “together” and it is important for us as believers to know that is usually the only way it will happen. The Lord will bless us “together.”

What an amazing fellow our young friend Daniel is. At a time in life when most of us suffer deeply from our own arrogance, here’s one young man who has already learned to be humble. And it is a beautiful thing to see, especially in the workplace. It is a beautiful thing for his boss and his co-workers to see. They’ll know he’s “different” all right, and it will be the kind of difference that might just move them to come and “ask a reason of the hope that is in him.”

May you and I be genuinely humble like Daniel. May we keep ourselves “out of the way” so the Lord can show others Himself. And may that light shine brightly into someone else’s dark world “to give them the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.”

God help us.