Daniel in the Cubicle: Creative Discipleship in the WorkplaceEsimerkki

Do you know the feeling of waking up frightened because of a horrible nightmare, but then you can't even remember what it was? And what if it were a recurring dream; a dream that comes each night so that you don't even want to go to sleep for fear of the horrible dream? King Nebuchadnezzar was desperately trying to establish his reign and assert his leadership. Just like many present-day CEOs out there, he was trying to show everyone who’s boss all while managing employees and trying to please a board of trustees. Yet night after night he had this horrible dream. As any sensible boss would do, King Nebuchadnezzar asked his trusted advisors to tell him what the dream meant. The catch, though, was that they also had to tell him what the dream was, probably because he couldn't remember it. Babylonian culture had volumes and volumes on dreams and their interpretations. The stakes were high for the interpreters to get their job done, but the possibilities of the dream’s meaning were endless and they declared the task as too difficult. Yet the king’s interpreters did not have God’s help as Daniel and his friends did. Daniel and his friends were not in a workplace of their choosing. Like many men, women, and children today, Daniel and his friends were migrant slaves trying to learn to sing the praises of God in a foreign land. Despite the threats of violence in their situation and the trauma of exile, they persevered. As we read in Daniel 2, perhaps such perseverance was because they had one another and brought to each other the real concrete challenges of being faithful to God in a most challenging workplace.