Week 32 Daniel 2
Daniel’s prayer told me several things about the Lord:
He alone has wisdom and power
He determines the course of world events
He removes kings and sets others on the throne
He gives wisdom to the wise…
He reveals deep and mysterious things
(He) knows what lies hidden in darkness
Though he himself is surrounded by light.
While I’m reading through I usually look for things that the bible says about the Lord – and Daniel’s prayer told me seven or eight.
But one caught my attention: the Lord determines the course of world events.
That’s what it says. And I sat wondering what it meant.
If the Lord determined every single action to the point where no individual in reality actually decided anything independently then that would be Total Determination. It’s possible that if every single action was totally determined then I maybe wouldn’t know about it but either way if Total Determination’s the rule it’s a pretty theoretical one.
I’m more interested in practical day-to-day reality where I decide to do something and then it happens. In which case when the Lord determines the course of world events it makes sense that he’s managing it in an open-ended Non-Total kind of way. People in China Brazil Turkey Canada Russia make decisions that push world events in one direction…and different decisions would push them in another direction. But while all that’s happening the Lord makes overall determinations. He’s a Determination Coordinator.
Note: quote from Daniel 2:20-23 (NLT)