The Moment of Clarity

“And at the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up my eyes unto heaven, and my understanding returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored him who lives forever.”
Daniel 4:34a

     While looking through one of those “shop at home” catalogs that fill our mailboxes, I saw an interesting T-shirt with these words imprinted:  “I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you!”   That thought came back to me as we were studying the Book of James at our weekly KeyPoint Fellowship in Binghamton.  James was discussing the arrogance of the individuals who used their wealth to live an extravagant lifestyle while disregarding the needs of others around them.  We looked at Nebuchadnezzar’s story in the Book of Daniel because he also had to learn a hard lesson about thinking that his temporal blessings and power was somehow his creation and had nothing to do with God.  After being sent by God to live like an animal in the wild for some period of time, he finally lifted up his eyes toward heaven and again received his understanding.  Since the members of our fellowship group understand addictions, someone mentioned that he had a “moment of clarity.”  And that was true.  His moment of clarity was not unlike the one that the prodigal son had while in the pig sty “when he came to himself” once more (Luke 15:17).

​     Certainly there is whole sermon wrapped up in the idea of experiencing moments of clarity, however there is distinction between human realization and godly understanding.  The Apostle Paul says it like this, “Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance.  For you were sorry in a godly manner…for godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:9-10).   It is not enough to just feel sorrow about the trouble and pain you are experiencing; you have to turn your eyes towards God in true repentance to have a godly moment of clarity.  We will return to this subject again in our next Golden Key Blog.