The Hand Who Holds Your Breath by Holly D. Sands

In my devotions this morning, one of my readings took me to Daniel 5. And two verses made me stop and take note:

"But you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this... but you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven... and you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified." (Daniel 5:22-23)

The reason Daniel's words land so hard here is the phrase "although you knew all this." Belshazzar wasn't ignorant. He'd watched, or at the very least, heard firsthand what happened to Nebuchadnezzar. King Nebuchadnezzar had been the most powerful man on earth, lost his mind, was driven out to live like an animal for seven years, and only got his kingdom back when he lifted his eyes to heaven and acknowledged that the Most High rules (Daniel 4:34-37). [Side note: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has a wonderful series worth listening to on Heaven Rules.] Belshazzar had that whole story available to him. And he threw a party with the temple vessels anyway.

That's what verse 22 means by "you have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this." It's not that Belshazzar lacked information. He had a front-row seat to what happens when a king forgets who's actually on the throne - and he did it again anyway, louder and more brazen.

Then verse 23 names exactly what he did instead: he lifted himself up, he praised gods that "do not see or hear or know," and the God who holds his very breath in His hand and owns all his ways, he did not glorify.

Think about that: "the God who holds your breath" - his very inhale at the banquet table was being determined by God, not himself. And "owns all your ways" - the whole trajectory of his life and reign was owned and orchestrated by God. Belshazzar could see the gods on his table. Gold, silver, wood, stone. They were objects he could touch and control. What he couldn't see, and definitely could not control, was the One actually keeping him alive to make the toast.

Let's for a moment strip off the crown and the temple vessels. What's left is a person who knew better and did it anyway. And that is not a Babylonian problem. That is the human heart, unguarded, on any given day.

We tell ourselves our sin looks nothing like his. We're not pouring wine from stolen temple cups. But what are we doing? Every time we trust our own judgment over what God has already plainly said - that's the same banquet. Every time we white-knuckle control over things that were never ours to control - that's the same banquet. If we are aware of Who exactly holds our breath and spend the whole day living like we are the ones holding it - that's the same banquet. 

Man's chief end is to glorify God. Not to manage our own outcomes. Not to look put-together. Glorify God. That's it. That's the whole assignment. And Belshazzar had a God who was, at that very moment, keeping his lungs moving and he just could not be bothered to glorify Him. Don't you dare read that and feel superior. Left to yourself, you wouldn't either. The heart does not drift toward God on its own. It drifts toward the banquet. Every single time. Left to itself, it always will. The only reason any of us ever turns is because He does the turning.

Let's slow down on those two phrases, because we blew past them too fast the first time. "Holds your breath in His hand." Holds. Present tense. Right now. The breath you just took reading this sentence wasn't generated by you. You didn't earn it, negotiate for it, or guarantee its arrival. It was granted to you, this instant, by a Hand you cannot see, and it will be granted again in a few seconds, or it won't, and that decision was never yours to make in the first place. Job knew this. "In Whose Hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind" (Job 12:10). Every breath of your entire life, from the first one that made you cry to the one you'll take reading the next sentence, is on loan by God Himself. 

And "owns all your ways" is not a smaller claim tacked on for effect. It means the job that didn't come through, the diagnosis you didn't ask for, the door that slammed shut when you'd already picked out the paint color on the other side of it - none of that slipped past Him. None of it is Him losing His grip while you scramble to find yours. He owns it. All of it. Your ways - (plural) every one of them, the ones you're proud of and the ones you'd erase if you could. Paul told the philosophers in Athens the same truth in different words: "in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). In Him. There is no square inch of your biography that sits outside His ownership, waiting for your permission to be handed over.

Here's why that should wreck you before it comforts you: it means every ounce of control you've been gripping was borrowed, not owned, the whole time. You were never actually driving. You were a passenger insisting on holding the wheel of a car that you never had the ability to actually command. And here's why, eventually, it should comfort you more than anything else ever could: the same hand that holds your breath and owns your ways is not indifferent to you. Belshazzar met that hand as a fist, in judgment, because he spent his whole life refusing to bow to it. But that same hand held out bread to five thousand. That same hand touched lepers no one else would touch. That same hand was pierced, so that the God who holds your breath could hold you too - not as property, but as a child.

So don't just close this and go on with your day like Belshazzar closed the banquet and went to bed. He didn't get another morning to change his answer. You do. Right now, this breath, still in His hand - glorify Him with it. Don't wait for a hand to appear on a wall to make you.

About the Author

Holly D. Sands has walked with Christ since 1983. She writes at He Is My Song, sharing encouragement and admonition from Scripture with women pursuing Him more deeply. She lives in South Carolina, where she and her husband, Shane Sands, are members of Poplar Springs Baptist Church. Shane's been called by God as an evangelist and leads United in Christ Jesus ministry. At home, they're joined by their idiot cat, Mister Bojangles, whose main contribution to the household is sleeping and eating treats.