Signs

Related to our life’s objectives and professional appointments is the investigation of the nature and life preparation of persons.  For this there are key words/concepts to consider: appearance and health; knowledge to understanding leading to wisdom; poise and presentation; teachable and communicable, and commitment to duty.  Education will continue for personal/social life, and professional career.  There are included important sub-factors in each of the main concepts.  Perhaps not finding a sufficient number of competent persons from his own citizens, Nebuchadnezzar instructed his minister of personnel to draw from even from the captive persons of Israel those competent to carry leadership and responsibilities related to the management of the kingdom.  Reading the King’s instructions is striking in that they were ordered nearly 2,500 years ago, and with adjustments of language in the modern idiom, those instructions are just about the same that would be offered today to a student preparing for professional life.  The proposal of the King is quite modern.  It occurred before computers, statistics to verify theory, insight into personality and influence.  The accent was on the competency personally (education) and professionally (training) that would commend the person in working for the good of the kingdom.  They went to college for years – tuition free.  It is almost mesmerizing to absorb – instructions so ancient and so modern.

Four men were chosen from Israel’s captives, told they were to work in the language of the Babylonians, and given new names to indicate they were naturalized.  Daniel was known to the king and in his professional life with the assigned name: Belteshazzar.  The Daniel name would accent his native people – captives and low caste.  The four men were likely informed that they were not to evangelize in their native faith, but were not limited in their private beliefs.  That context would appear later, and they would bravely take first responsibility to their faith, and that knowing they had not failed in their mortal assignments from God.  Taking assignments from the king they proved themselves partly from the honesty and integrity required in their faith.  The king needed such persons in that he was commonly in the field with soldiers ordering various military campaigns that would drag on for months.  He knew matters were going well in the Capital because of the men he chose to act for him.  Not until the nineteenth century of our era did kings catch on that they could safely stay in the palace (as King David did in his last years) and permit the best generals and soldiers in the field to die for the flag.  Even today the male members of the royal houses and gentry serve for a time in the military as an expectation of the public of the relationship of the heads of government to military participation, leadership and danger.  It is somewhat carried over even in a democratic society where the electorate rewards effective generals, in the president’s office after a war.  Greatness of leaders has often been evaluated from the manner in which they managed in warfare.

Today persons of success seek to prepare themselves in the details of the recipe offered by the king to those chosen to follow it.  They give the appearance of alertness in their persons.  They need not be handsome or pretty, but they do need to have the aura of competency, a confidence in what they are proposing and doing.  They need to know the truths for solutions to questions found in the search of facts, understanding the facts in the context of the problems, and with wisdom make their conclusions.  They need to be learners so as not to endanger others and the cause they are addressing.  The first learning is formal, which concentration is meant to reduce twenty or more years in time periods taken to learn the wisdom needed for life.  I have known successful persons who if they had formal education at the beginning of their adult life would have been even more successful than they became.  Persons I have known remarking on the point and having received preparatory education for the life they have chosen in society have been grateful for that education.  It is interesting that those who seek education related to knowledge and understanding to wisdom are usually treated kindly by society.  There is human discipline in it, but may not be exciting.