“Daniel answered and said, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. To you, oh God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for You have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of You. For You have made known to us the kings matter.””
– Daniel 2:20–23
Are those not awesome verses? Like this picture of God, the one to whom belongs all wisdom and might. Just let that soak in. God has all wisdom. He has all knowledge, all perspective. He knows what is good, and right, and best, perfectly. He is all wise. Even that, we could just stop there. We can trust God even when things are not going the way we would plan and we don’t understand why this or that is happening. To be able to pause, get on our knees and just look up and say, “God, to you belong wisdom, not me. I trust your wisdom.” And then think, okay, what if God was wise, but He didn’t have power to do what was good, and right, and best? But that’s the beauty. Verse 20 says, “To you, belong all wisdom and might. To you belongs all power. Praise God, the one who has all wisdom, also has all power.” Can you imagine if that were not true? If God was wise but weak, or if God was powerful but not wise. He was foolish with power. Praise God, He is all wise and all mighty.
And not just that, see His love here. He gives wisdom to the wise, He gives it. He doesn’t keep His wisdom to Himself. He gives it. That’s the whole picture throughout the rest of this prayer, all the way down to Verse 23. Daniel says, “You give me strength and you give me wisdom. You’ve made known to me what we asked of You, God.” And this is what we see all throughout his word, think James chapter one, “He is generous with His wisdom, and He’s generous with His strength, with His might.” Oh God, we praise You for Your perfect wisdom and for Your perfect might, and for Your perfect love, and grace, and mercy that You would share these things with us. That when we need wisdom. God, I know there’s people right now, I know I’m one of them, and many people listening to this right now praying with me who need wisdom, who need wisdom in our lives in so many different ways.
Just like, so many different circumstances. We need wisdom right now, and You tell us that when we ask for wisdom, You are generous and You give it to us. When we trust that You will give it to us. So we say, “Yes, God, we trust in Your wisdom. We trust that You’re all wise and we trust that You’ll provide it as we ask it of You now. God, we pray for wisdom and we pray for strength.” God, I pray for those who are feeling weak, as I am, in many ways. We pray for Your strength and our weakness, for Your might and Your power, and Your infinite ability and our inability. And God, we pray for Your mercy.
Do these things in our lives, in my life and the lives of everyone who’s listening to this, right now. God, we pray that You would grant us the wisdom that we need, and the strength that we need, by Your mercy for whatever we’re walking through right now, for whatever comes our way today. Oh, God, we bless Your name forever and ever. To you belong wisdom and might, and light dwells with you. And you promise to give us everything we need, and You share these things generously with us. All glory be to Your name, in Jesus name we pray, according to Your word, which we love, in Daniel chapter two. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
