“…God, in whose hand are your life-breath and all your ways…” – Daniel 5:23
“He did it all on his own.”
Those were my father’s words about me to my aunt and cousin, as we sat around the dinner table, our stomach’s digesting the tempura my aunt had prepared. Until that evening, I hadn’t been to their home in over eleven years. But there we were. Myself, a twenty-year-old, recent college graduate and less than a month away from beginning my seminary education. My cousin, a twenty-three-year old at the tail-end of his college education, was trying to enter flight school to one day become a pilot. My father, in his typical lecture mode, was berating both my aunt (his younger sister) and cousin on how he needed to take more ownership of his education and career path.
They had heard the lecture a thousand times. Interestingly, I’d never heard it. My father felt that he had lost the right to lecture me. He, just like my aunt and cousin, hadn’t seen me since my I was a child. Due to my parents’ divorce, from age thirteen to twenty-two, my dad was physically absent from my life, and with no dialogue between us for six of those years. And so he admitted that his previously favorite child “did it all on his own.” He was right in the sense that he played no part in my higher educational achievements. His admission was both humble and admirable.
A Little Right, but Mostly Wrong
But in an important sense, my dad’s dinner-table declaration was wrong. Although I knew he was wrong, I didn’t correct him in the moment, knowing the heart it came from. But I knew that I didn’t do it all on my own. In fact, I didn’t do any of it on my own. As much as I would’ve loved to ride on wave of my father’s errant conclusion, I knew even then that the so-called self-made man is pure myth.
My father may have been absent from my life throughout my youth and college years, but my heavenly Father wasn’t. He was the one who carried me through my middle school and high school years. He was the one carried me through my college years. I knew I was the man I was sitting at that dinner table because God had shaped me into that man. I knew I couldn’t take credit for anything positive about what I had achieved and who I had become. I believed this truth then, I still believe it today, and I won’t stop believing it, because it’s a timeless truth from the Bible itself.
The Humiliation of a “Self-Made” King
King Belshazzar of Babylon apparently never believed it, and he paid a steep price for his arrogance. He was deluded into thinking he was a self-made man and that he was responsible for the power and prosperity he was experiencing as king of a large empire. And so he went as far as desecrating the vessels formerly used in God’s temple and using it for his own pagan feasts. Daniel, summoned by Belshazzar’s wife, admonished him:
“Yet you, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this, but you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them; and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which do not see, hear or understand. But the God in whose hand are your life-breath and all your ways, you have not glorified (Daniel 5:22-23, emphasis added).
Belshazzar forgot that the God whose vessels he desecrated was the the same God who held his very life in his hand. Yet, God is opposed to such pride and self-glory. He ended Belshazzar’s life that very night.
Woe to the man who forgets that in the hand of God is his life-breath and all his ways.
As Christians, this is where we ought to be different from the world. The vast majority of the eight billion people on our planet do not worshipfully acknowledge God’s hand in their existence. Yet, God in his grace, gives life and breath to all men, and allows all living people—Christians and non-Christians alike—to live and move and breathe (Acts 17:28). But what ought to distinguish Christians from the rest is that Christians glorify God and are continually humbled ourselves before God because of it.
What Belshazzar failed to do, so the majority of the world is also failing to do (see Rom 1:21). But what the majority of the world is failing to do, Christians must do. It is from Christians that the Father will receive the worship from the world that He deserves (John 4:23-24). Christ died and rose again for us that we may, as those set apart from the world, give God the worship and glory that He deserves.
So, let all Christians then regularly contemplate how in God’s hand are our life-breath and all our ways.
In God’s Hand Is Our Life-Breath: To Him We Owe our Existence and Personhood
Let all Christians regularly contemplate how in God’s hand is, first, our life-breath. A man is alive only when a man is breathing. Once he can no longer breathe, he can no longer live. The fact that we are alive to see another day is because of God. The fact that we have consciousness is because of God. The fact that we are physically and mentally healthy enough to do anything of any capacity is from God. The fact that our organs and appendages are functioning the way they are every second of the day is because of God.
Moreover, the distinct qualities and traits that we have as individuals is due to the fact that we were fearfully and wonderfully fashioned by God (Ps 139:13-16). The food, water, and nourishment we need to live is given to us through God’s providence. The wisdom and cognition we need to make all our daily choices comes from God. God sustains our life by protecting us from evil and providing for our all our needs.
Let no man every forget that, apart from God, we have no capacity to live. For all of us who have life, let us regularly acknowledge and worship the God as the sole giver of life. To him, and to him alone, do we owe our existence.
In God’s Hand Are Ways: To Him We Owe Our Endeavors and Accomplishments
Lest we foolishly think that God is like a car battery that simply gets us started while we do the rest, let us also regularly contemplate how all our ways are in God’s hand. Everything that we are able to enjoy is from God. Everything that we are able to do—from taking care of our families to working our jobs to driving around the city to cultivating and maintaining relationships—is from God. Our daily habits are made possible through God. Our various responsibilities are entrusted to us by God. And everything that we are able to achieve academically, athletically, artistically, occupationally, and relationally is due to the working of God. Apart from God, we can enjoy nothing, endeavor in nothing, and achieve nothing. To him, and to him alone, do we owe our endeavors and accomplishments (Rom 11:36).
Conclusion
It’s been eighteen years since that dinner-table conversation at my aunt’s house. Back then, I was an aspiring pastor; my cousin, an aspiring pilot. Since then, my cousin completed flight school and I completed seminary. Today, he is a pilot for Philippine Airlines and I am a pastor a pastor for Kaimuki Christian Church. We’re both husbands and fathers; we both have beautiful families. We’re both healthy at the prime and peak of our lives and careers.
And neither of us did it on our own.
