Daniel 2 holds one of my all-time favorite Biblical accounts. The great Nebuchadnezzar, troubled by dreams, demanded that all of his wise men be tasked not only with their interpretation, but that they prove their ability by recounting the dreams to him. Under threat of execution if they failed, the wise men pleaded with Nebuchadnezzar: "It is a difficult thing that the king requests, and there is no other who can tell it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh" (Daniel 2:11). What a profound statement. The "wise men" succinctly captured what many artists and philosophers today call "the human condition" as it appears to the man who has no knowledge of the one God.
The mind of man searches for meaning and for truth, often succumbing to the dictates of human nature and rejecting the truth when he finds it. All that he aspires to seems to be just out of reach to the man who will not acknowledge his own need and relinquish control of his life to the Lord. Too many of us, like the wise men, stop short of the truth and submit to the lie that God's dwelling "is not with flesh." The typical result is a life lived in the pursuit of illegitimate fulfillment, inconsistencies, and collateral damage. (Watch any episode of Friends and you'll know what I mean...On second thought, don't.)
The wise men failed, though, to recognize one thing. There were four young men brought to Babylon among the Hebrew captives with whom God dwelt. He answered their prayer when Nebuchadnezzar had ordered the execution of the wise men. He walked with them in the fire. He kept them holy for Himself when they were forced to live in a kingdom of decadence that did not know their God, and sought to tempt and coerce them into assimilation. We were never meant to live as those "wise men" did, hopeless, groping in darkness. Instead, "we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light" (1 John 1:7).