You get the sense that Belshazzar should have known better. After all, he knew of the humbling of his predecessor, the legendary Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The story had been told and retold of how, at the height of arrogance, Nebuchadnezzar, who had deemed himself a god, had been humbled under the mighty hand of the Most High God. Of how he had been reduced to grazing with the beasts of the field until he came to his senses and acknowledged that it really wasn’t he who ruled the kingdoms of men, but that the King of Heaven was all and over all. And, because the story had been known in the palace and through the royal courts for years, Nebuchadnezzar’s successor, Belshazzar, should have known better. Instead, he ended up being weighed on divine scales and had been “found deficient” (Daniel 5:27 CSB).

It had started out innocent enough, just a “small” gathering of the king and a thousand of his closest friends. Soon the wine was flowing freely, the talk was getting pretty big, and the bravado had turned reckless. “Given the greatness of who I am,” thinks the king, “I deserve better vessels than these from which to drink. Bring me vessels of gold and silver made for a god — made to serve the God. Bring me the treasures of the Jerusalem temple that I might pickle my brain in a manner fitting one of my stature! And with them let us praise the gods of gold and silver!”

At the moment, if Belshazzar had cared to think about it, he could have looked back over his shoulder and seen the line — the one he had just crossed.

Disembodied fingers of a human hand appear. Divine graffiti is written on the wall. The king’s face goes white. The joints in his limbs give way. His knees knock (Daniel 5:5-6). Oh, oh, this isn’t good! He should have known better. But now he had been weighed in the balance, and he had come up short.

The indictment?

But you . . , Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, . . . you have exalted yourself against the Lord of the heavens. . . . you praised the gods made of silver and gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone, . . . you have not glorified the God who holds your life-breath in His hand and who controls the whole course of your life.

(Daniel 5:22-23 CSB)

Now, I’m no king. Don’t have a thousand friends to invite to a party, or access to expensive treasures from which to stuff my face and feed my ego. But I do have an old nature that can sometimes seduce me like too much wine. The intoxicating drink of self going to my head, opening a door for pride to take root by thinking that I’m in control and that I deserve some recognition. Forgetting that all that I am is due to the One who gives me breath, I can lose sight of the reality that anything that might be considered an accomplishment is by His grace alone. Prone to getting carried away with thinking that I have earned what I think is mine to be earned, instead of acknowledging that whatever I might have is to be stewarded for Another. I too can cross over the line. I too can be weighed, only to be reminded that I really don’t weigh all that much.

Honestly, I don’t want to come up short. I don’t want to be found wanting when it comes to acknowledging the favor of the Lord of heaven. I don’t want to be a lightweight.

O’, that my heart might be kept low as I seek to honor the God Most High. That I might humble my heart continually as I lift up His Name constantly.

Only by His grace. Always for His glory.