An Excellent Spirit

“Inasmuch as an excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding, interpreting dreams, solving riddles, and explaining enigmas were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar, now let Daniel be called, and he will give the interpretation.”” Daniel‬ ‭5:12‬ ‭

Hello, and glad to come your way again. Thought good and hard for a minute on what to write on, and settled on this which was suggested over a year ago by my brother in law.

This is a Bible story on Daniel who was a slave under Babylonian captivity. The preceding chapters documents his ascent. He became a ruler over Babylon, chief administrator over all the wise men of Babylon and “sat in the gate of the king”. The gate of the king in the East was a post of chief honor and dignity as a counselor of the king. Many factors play in Daniel’s success, but among one was an excellent spirit.

What is it? This text was written in Hebrew Aramaic and the word excellent is an adjective denoting preeminent, surpassing, extreme, extraordinary. So excellence in this passage means you go an extra step above the ordinary which makes you extraordinary. So from this meaning alone, I could say, Daniel had a great work ethic. No lazy person can be excellent.

What made him excellent? We can glean from his story which can be applicable to our lives.

1. He brought solution to a problem- if you read the first eleven verses of chapter 5, you will get a better context of the text quoted. The king, his lords, wives and concubines were feasting and drinking. In the middle of that, the king saw a hand write on the wall of his palace (which calls for alarm). The king became worried and wanted an interpretation of the writing. His astrologers, magicians and soothsayers couldn’t interpret the writing. This was where Daniel came in, hence the description of him. He interpreted the writing which spelt the future of the king. An excellent spirit brings solutions where there are puzzles. May this quality reflect among our work colleagues, friends, family and the like.

“Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm.” ‭‭Daniel‬ ‭6:3‬ ‭

2. He was eminent at his work– the success at what he does was clear on one factor: an excellent spirit. You go above average and give out your very best. There are too many average employees at work who are just interested in having a paycheck. They will also complain about lack of opportunities and why they are overlooked when it comes to promotion. An excellent employee will not get to work at the start of his shift at 7am. No, he will be there ten minutes earlier. You have a fifteen minute break and you still need your supervisor to tell you break is over. The sad thing is, he has been telling you this for the past five years. That is not being excellent. Excellence also means you need little or no supervision to do the things that are required of you. You can’t be extraordinary when you are so used to ordinary things. It comes at a price of overextending yourself to break every ceiling and lift every lid over your life. What we see from this verse too is, excellence will get you noticed and promoted. It is IMPOSSIBLE to live in obscurity when you are excellent.

“So the governors and satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find no charge or fault, because he was faithful; nor was there any error or fault found in him.” ‭‭Daniel‬ ‭6:4‬ ‭

3. Excellent people are faithful- they are not perfect; they are just responsible. Living a life of excellence brings a lot of hate and envy at times. You might have just few friends. I have realized with time that excellent people will value doing the right thing over the good thing. Sometimes, right and good things are mutually exclusive, think about it. Excellence breeds faithfulness. Faithfulness means you carry your assigned tasks to the letter. It will be difficult to lay a charge on you. People easily make themselves dispensable at work through their attitude and average results on their tasks. These things make the higher-ups easily find a fault. I pray as I write that may we truly be excellent, especially at our work.

May we move from average, and may we not settle at good. May we pay every price necessary to attain excellence.

Thank you for reading.

Please comment, like, or share today’s post. Subscribe to this blog too if you haven’t.

Till I come your way again…

Peace & Love