the rest of Dan 2.... oops

Dear ones- here is the "rest of the story" from last night- I must half been half a sleep and copied half the story!

...14 When Arioch, the commander of the king's guard, came to kill them, Daniel handled the situation with wisdom and discretion. 15 He asked Arioch, "Why has the king issued such a harsh decree?" So Arioch told him all that had happened. 16 Daniel went at once to see the king and requested more time so he could tell the king what the dream meant. 17 Then Daniel went home and told his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah what had happened. 18 He urged them to ask the God of heaven to show them his mercy by telling them the secret, so they would not be executed along with the other wise men of Babylon. 19 That night the secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven, 20 saying, "Praise the name of God forever and ever, for he alone has all wisdom and power. 21 He determines the course of world events; he removes kings and sets others on the throne. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the scholars. 22 He reveals deep and mysterious things and knows what lies hidden in darkness, though he himself is surrounded by light. 23 I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors, for you have given me wisdom and strength. You have told me what we asked of you and revealed to us what the king demanded."
24 Then Daniel went in to see Arioch, who had been ordered to execute the wise men of Babylon. Daniel said to him, "Don't kill the wise men. Take me to the king, and I will tell him the meaning of his dream." 25 Then Arioch quickly took Daniel to the king and said, "I have found one of the captives from Judah who will tell Your Majesty the meaning of your dream!" 26 The king said to Daniel (also known as Belteshazzar), "Is this true? Can you tell me what my dream was and what it means?" 27 Daniel replied, "There are no wise men, enchanters, magicians, or fortune-tellers who can tell the king such things. 28 But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and he has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the future. Now I will tell you your dream and the visions you saw as you lay on your bed. 29 "While Your Majesty was sleeping, you dreamed about coming events. The revealer of mysteries has shown you what is going to happen. 30 And it is not because I am wiser than any living person that I know the secret of your dream, but because God wanted you to understand what you were thinking about.
31 "Your Majesty, in your vision you saw in front of you a huge and powerful statue of a man, shining brilliantly, frightening and awesome. 32 The head of the statue was made of fine gold, its chest and arms were of silver, its belly and thighs were of bronze, 33 its legs were of iron, and its feet were a combination of iron and clay. 34 But as you watched, a rock was cut from a mountain by supernatural means. F8 It struck the feet of iron and clay, smashing them to bits. 35 The whole statue collapsed into a heap of iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold. The pieces were crushed as small as chaff on a threshing floor, and the wind blew them all away without a trace. But the rock that knocked the statue down became a great mountain that covered the whole earth. 36 "That was the dream; now I will tell Your Majesty what it means. 37 Your Majesty, you are a king over many kings. The God of heaven has given you sovereignty, power, strength, and honor. 38 He has made you the ruler over all the inhabited world and has put even the animals and birds under your control. You are the head of gold. 39 "But after your kingdom comes to an end, another great kingdom, inferior to yours, will rise to take your place. After that kingdom has fallen, yet a third great kingdom, represented by the bronze belly and thighs, will rise to rule the world. 40 Following that kingdom, there will be a fourth great kingdom, as strong as iron. That kingdom will smash and crush all previous empires, just as iron smashes and crushes everything it strikes. 41 The feet and toes you saw that were a combination of iron and clay show that this kingdom will be divided. 42 Some parts of it will be as strong as iron, and others as weak as clay. 43 This mixture of iron and clay also shows that these kingdoms will try to strengthen themselves by forming alliances with each other through intermarriage. But this will not succeed, just as iron and clay do not mix. 44 "During the reigns of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed; no one will ever conquer it. It will shatter all these kingdoms into nothingness, but it will stand forever. 45 That is the meaning of the rock cut from the mountain by supernatural means, crushing to dust the statue of iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold. "The great God has shown Your Majesty what will happen in the future. The dream is true, and its meaning is certain."
46 Then King Nebuchadnezzar bowed to the ground before Daniel and worshiped him, and he commanded his people to offer sacrifices and burn sweet incense before him. 47 The king said to Daniel, "Truly, your God is the God of gods, the Lord over kings, a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this secret." 48 Then the king appointed Daniel to a high position and gave him many valuable gifts. He made Daniel ruler over the whole province of Babylon, as well as chief over all his wise men. 49 At Daniel's request, the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be in charge of all the affairs of the province of Babylon, while Daniel remained in the king's court.
FOOTNOTES:F5: The second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign was 603 B.C. F6: Or Chaldeans; also in 2:4, 5, 10. F7: The original text from this point through chapter 7 is in Aramaic. F8: Aramaic not by human hands; also in 2:45.
Holy Bible, New Living Translation,copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.,Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved
~ Lena’s Comments ~
He called upon all he’d been taught by experience and culture to rely on in his time of pressure. Ever know that you have a destiny and purpose deep down inside, yet have no clue either what it is or how to find it. That is the desperation cry for God that is inside of each man. The "empty without You," sense.
The same dream that showed us who we are and is now revealed in us, what was already ingrained within us, is now the message entrusted to us. The world is also desperate to know the interpretation of the purposes that will pull them out of the darkness of their lives. They are crying out, even demanding that those of us who have answers would tell them the truth. It is the cry at the mouth of hell. There is only one way to purpose and one who can tell us what His dreams are for us. What we were created for.
There are Daniel’s who recognize and actually hear this cry and are desperate, as desperate as Jesus was to save others from the doom of eternal loneliness without their Creator’s dream being fulfilled in them. They even care enough to seek and save the lost, that they would go as far as to compel their friends of faith to join them in prayer and fasting for the revealing of truth to souls. This Daniel knew about a spiritual principle of agreement and of the increase of the power of unity. He was convicted of God’s power-ability so much that he petitioned his friends to join him in a "Prayer of Three" concerning how to bring the interpretations of God’s dreams to the understanding realm of those who have been in darkness. The revealer of mysteries wants to show them, HIS dreams for them and for their future in Him, a future based on His word, His forces at work and His life. He wants to crush and cause to lay low any other false ideas that have robbed us of the glory of the knowledge of His kingdom and power. We’d been lied to. We’d thought that we were powerful, that we were supposed to rule ourselves and control our future alone. He wants to tear down the ideas that brought us this far and to build new ideas that strengthen the truth and power of His kingdom, that it may be spread further. God actually endowed men with specific giftings for the administration and function of His kingdom, and desires to use each one of these parts for His glory. Many gifts that God has given men have been abused as men consider them and rather than exalting God they exalt their own kingdoms. Careful, because this kind of rule will only come down, sooner or later, either way is tragic and not a necessary fate.