The Statue and the Stone That Smashed It

Have you ever felt very, very small? Like the whole world was big and loud, and you were just one little person in the middle of it?

A long time ago, a king named Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. A dream so strange and so terrible that he woke up shaking. He could not remember what he had dreamed, and yet he could not forget it either.

None of his wise men could help him. But God had given a gift to a young man named Daniel, one of the boys who had been marched far from home to Babylon, the very one who said no to the king's rich food and grew bright and strong on vegetables and water. And in the dark of the night, God whispered the king's dream to Daniel, like a secret passed from a friend.

So Daniel went to the king and told him.

You dreamed of a statue, Daniel said. A giant. Taller than the temple, taller than the trees. Its head was shining gold. Its chest was silver. Its belly was bronze. Its legs were iron, hard and cold. And its feet were iron mixed with clay.

It was enormous. It was glittering. It looked like it would stand forever and ever.

That statue, Daniel said, is the kingdoms of the world. One king, then another, then another. Big, strong kingdoms, the kind that stomp and shout and make little people feel like nothing at all. The kind that seem too big to ever, ever beat.

But the dream was not finished.

Out of a mountain, a stone broke loose. Just a small stone, cut by no human hands at all.

And the little stone rolled.

It struck the great statue at its feet, those feet of iron and clay. And the giant cracked. It crumbled. The gold and the silver, the bronze and the iron, all of it broke apart like dry leaves, and the wind carried it away until not one piece was left.

Where did all the big, frightening kingdoms go? Gone. Like they had never stood at all.

And the little stone? The little stone grew. And grew. It became a mountain, and the mountain filled the whole earth. And it would never, ever end.

The king listened, and he was amazed. But there was a part of the dream even the king could not see yet, a promise God was holding safe until the right time.

The stone was a King who was coming.

He would not come on a golden throne. He would come small. The way stones come small. The way babies come small. People would look at him and think, what can he do? He is only one. He has no army. He has no crown of iron.

But he is the Stone cut by no human hands. And nothing the world builds, no giant, no bully, no kingdom that makes you feel like nothing, can stand against him. One day every one of them will blow away like dust.

And his kingdom, the kingdom of Jesus, will fill the whole earth.

It has already started, like a stone broken loose and rolling, and you can feel it moving even now. One day it will fill everything, and there will be no more small, and no more afraid, ever again.