“Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and glorify and honor the King of heaven. All his acts are just and true, and he is able to humble the proud.”
Daniel 4:37
The majesty and splendor of God simply do not mix with arrogant, human pride. In the last post, we looked at Daniel and his humble spirit. In Daniel 4, we see the results of King Nebuchadnezzar’s incorrigible pride.
In Daniel 4, the king again calls upon Daniel to interpret a dream that has been bothering him. After Nebuchadnezzar relays the dream, Daniel shudders to respond that the king is about to endure something terrible. In the dream, a giant tree representing the king is to be chopped down, and Nebuchadnezzar would be receive the mind of an animal and be forced to live outside of human society. The king of Babylon, one of the most powerful empires at the time, was about to be humiliated.
The promise in the situation was that God was going to restore the kingdom to Nebuchadnezzar but not before the king learned a valuable lesson – God Most High alone deserves the credit.
Have you ever encountered a period of time in your life in which nothing seemed to come easily? Whether it be a period of unemployment, a semester where the grades just wouldn’t come, or a season where being without a special someone seemed like it would be your lot in life, how often do we come out of the other side of these situations recognizing the valuable lesson that needed to be learned during the trial?
We can often come out of situations and look back thinking just how humiliating those circumstances were, but we fail to have the attitude of King Nebuchadnezzar after he was brought back out of the wilderness. The tough times are often made tougher by pride. The tough times, ultimately, may exist because of our pride. We think that we deserve to have a high paying job, straight A’s, or a spouse. The king of Babylon looked over his kingdom and he was delighted at what he saw, believing that it was he who built the city (Daniel 4:30). At that moment, the king’s dream was fulfilled, and Nebuchadnezzar became an exile.
Have you stopped to think that the tough times you are going through are a result of your pride telling you that you deserve what it is that you’re hoping for? Instead, do you maintain an attitude of humility and perseverance that recognizes God’s sovereignty over the situation?
Perhaps you are enduring a situation in which you feel absolutely humiliated. Don’t walk away from the situation with pride. Rather, do not lose that attitude of humility that allows you to keep your faith in the only one who delivers – Christ.
Cross Section 
truth. such a good word, brandon.