Tag Archives: Daniel 4:36

day 2559: Temporary Lapses

“When my sanity returned to me, so did my honor and glory and kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored as head of my kingdom, with even greater honor than before.”

We’ve come through (hopefully) with less stories of those who had a temporary lapse of judgment or discretion at the annul office holiday party.  One would think that given the past year plus of the #metoo movement and the heightened awareness of workplace misconduct that everyone would have learned their lesson.  We can’t be so sure.  What is more evident than ever now is that any lapse comes with a higher punishment and less tolerance.  Where once we might have laughed it off as “they just had one too many”,  in today’s world, one too many is one too far.  Let’s remember that we are in a heightened state of alert and as leaders or co-workers that others look up to, we carry with us a responsibility of consistency and lack of temporary lapses.

We are not without sin and fallibility so we will fall.  But God gives us account after account that He will return us to Him after we do.  There was King Nebuchadnezzar being forewarned by Daniel about what exactly would happen if the King didn’t turn around from his ways.  Daniel even told him that he could be restored to his throne if he repented.  So, why would the King not listen, go through seven periods of time as basically a crazy person living and eating among animals?  And then, just as Daniel predicted, the King’s temporary lapse of sanity ended and he was returned to rule his kingdom.  The difference was that after the lapse, he came back humble and giving glory to God.  So, sometimes we will just do stupid things and ask ourselves, “What we were we thinking?”, before God can get our attention.  We might do one of those today.  If we do, then let’s be quickly reminded to return to Him right then and there and ask for forgiveness and restoration.

Reference: Daniel 4:36 (New Living Translation)