Episode 512 - Giving glory to God in hard times

<p><a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/daniel/2?31">Dn 2:31-45</a></p> <p>Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar:<br> “In your vision, O king, you saw a statue,<br> very large and exceedingly bright,<br> terrifying in appearance as it stood before you.<br> The head of the statue was pure gold,<br> its chest and arms were silver,<br> its belly and thighs bronze, the legs iron,<br> its feet partly iron and partly tile.<br> While you looked at the statue,<br> a stone which was hewn from a mountain<br> without a hand being put to it,<br> struck its iron and tile feet, breaking them in pieces.<br> The iron, tile, bronze, silver, and gold all crumbled at once,<br> fine as the chaff on the threshing floor in summer,<br> and the wind blew them away without leaving a trace.<br> But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain<br> and filled the whole earth.</p> <p>“This was the dream;<br> the interpretation we shall also give in the king’s presence.<br> You, O king, are the king of kings;<br> to you the God of heaven<br> has given dominion and strength, power and glory;<br> men, wild beasts, and birds of the air, wherever they may dwell,<br> he has handed over to you, making you ruler over them all;<br> you are the head of gold.<br> Another kingdom shall take your place, inferior to yours,<br> then a third kingdom, of bronze,<br> which shall rule over the whole earth.<br> There shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron;<br> it shall break in pieces and subdue all these others,<br> just as iron breaks in pieces and crushes everything else.<br> The feet and toes you saw, partly of potter’s tile and partly of iron,<br> mean that it shall be a divided kingdom,<br> but yet have some of the hardness of iron.<br> As you saw the iron mixed with clay tile,<br> and the toes partly iron and partly tile,<br> the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.<br> The iron mixed with clay tile<br> means that they shall seal their alliances by intermarriage,<br> but they shall not stay united, any more than iron mixes with cla