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Lions' Den Survival Principles 24-Part Series

57 Lions' Den Survival Principles

Lions' Den Survival Principles PART 11 of 24

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

The king asked Daniel . . . "Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?" Daniel replied, "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. . . ."
—Daniel 2:26-27 (NIV)

In an industry where verbal and legal "credit wars" are waged over whose name is listed first, whose name has bigger letters, and what title is given, it's no mystery that God seldom gets top billing. He's in competition with too many competing "gods."

If the media is nothing else, it is a place where the human ego is given extremely clear and visible expression. One executive told me at a major media convention that studio executives would berate the limousine company and demand a different vehicle if they discovered that another exec had a longer limo than theirs—one of many measures of rank and status.

If the king had asked many media executives if they could disclose and interpret his dream, the responses may have ranged from "Of course, I can; don't you know who I am?" to "Do it yourself. Can't you see I'm busy!"

Daniel's response was quite different. He had learned a powerful lesson: Give God credit for all the good He does. To cop part of the credit is to ask to be humbled. (Survival Principle 22) Since God doesn't share His glory with anybody, those who steal part of it are entering a fight they cannot win—a war of the "gods." They will end up crushed.

Not only did Daniel not boast about what he might (wrongfully) have called his own powers to know and interpret mysteries, he made it clear that what the true and living God does can't be duplicated even by occult powers. "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner " can do such things. He made it unmistakably clear that it was the work of "The God in Heaven."

In contrasting God with the other spirits and their devotees, Daniel enhanced the majesty of Jehovah, plus, he let no praise for himself come from his own lips. In so doing, Daniel qualified for exaltation by the God whose glory he never coveted. Matthew 23:12 declares that God exalts those who humble themselves.
And exalted he was!

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© 2000-2004 Larry W. Poland, Ph.D., Mastermedia International, Inc.