Up close and personal with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego

by Mark Swinney

When I was a little kid, I hardly ever stayed in the house in my spare time-I always was outside. I liked to play sports, build forts, and skateboard with my friends. But what I really liked best was exploring the desert where I lived. It was so much fun to walk around different parts of New Mexico-my home state-to see what I could find.

I’d look for animals a lot. I remember finding a hognose snake (it’s harmless). It pretended to be dead. I left it right where I found it and when I came back a few minutes later, it was gone. I also found a nest with little spotted quail eggs once. The eggs were so tiny and beautiful.

On the weekends, my father started to take me to a Christian Science church on Sunday mornings. At first I wasn’t too sure if I’d like it, but after a while, I looked forward to it because I liked hearing about different Bible stories. Exploring the Bible was fun, sort of like exploring the desert. It was cool that even though the ideas in the Bible were written down a very long time ago, they were still full of good ideas.

Then I discovered something very interesting: just knowing about the lessons the Bible stories taught was nice. But they didn’t really come alive until they were brought into action in my own life.

Here is a good example of what I mean. One day when I was out exploring on the desert right near my house, I found a nice horned toad. They’re not really toads; they’re lizards.

They’ve got little spikes, but they aren’t sharp at all. They’re sort of soft actually. I really liked this little guy because he reminded me of a baby dinosaur. I kept him, named him Jake and took him along with me when I went outside to play.

One day I went over to see some friends and brought the horny toad with me. We were messing around in a sand pile near a house that was being built. One of my friends was playing with my horned toad. But then my friend stopped paying attention to what he was doing, and Jake must’ve ran away. I searched and searched, but never found him. I even wondered if he’d been buried in that sand.

When I got home I was so upset. I was really mad at my friend, and I felt so bad for losing that horny toad. I just went to my room and cried while sitting in a rocking chair. And, as I sat there, my anger just grew and grew.

That kind of anger felt terrible. I didn’t like it, but I indulged it anyway. I knew it wasn’t how I wanted to feel, but it was hard to let go of all the same. Deep down I knew that I’d have to stop the anger sometime. So, sort of reluctantly, I opened my thoughts just a crack for God to tell me something that would help me.

I’d learned in Sunday School that God’s angel messages were always present for me-and everyone. And you know what? As soon as I was open to God’s help, I immediately remembered a Bible story I learned about on Sunday. These three brothers named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were going to be punished by a king. They, too, had a good reason to be very angry. They hadn’t even done a single thing wrong. Their punishment was to be put into a large furnace of fire! (The king must not have been the type to mess with!)

These brothers didn’t deserve to be punished. But, to everyone’s surprise-even the king’s-they weren’t even one bit angry. And when they were put into the furnace, they didn’t get burned or anything. That impressed me.

I had been taught in Sunday School that one reason Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could not be burned was because their thoughts were pure and loving. They didn’t drop to the level of reaction and anger. It was neat how the fire had no effect on those brothers. Their clothes didn’t even smell like smoke.

Whew! Doing something like that sounded incredible. At first I wondered if that was a way of thinking that happened only in the Bible, but didn’t really happen anymore.

As I was sitting there in that rocking chair, I decided to try it. I decided to stop being burned up with anger, and instead try and feel the same kind of peace that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego must have felt so many years ago.

Thinking about it now, they must have felt such peace because they knew that God is the only power. There was no reason to react and fight back if only God has power. Those guys must have forgiven the king even before they were put in the furnace!

At first, I admit, I only forgave a little bit. You know how, before you jump into a swimming pool, you first sort of test the water with your foot? I did the same thing with forgiveness. I just tested what it might feel like.

But when I jumped in with all my heart and forgave my friend completely, something absolutely wonderful happened. I felt the warm, powerful goodness of God inside of me. It grew more powerful and felt increasingly better the more I immersed myself in this pure peace and forgiveness. That friend’s carelessness wasn’t right, but I could see God’s goodness and all power nevertheless. That’s what mattered. I felt 100% better.

Two days later, I was walking through a large expanse of desert, exploring as usual. I saw something moving out of the corner of his eye, and it was a very, very large horned toad. It took me a while to catch him, but I got him when he stopped next to a little bush.

A funny thing happened just a couple of days later, though. This warm goodness that was growing inside of me made me see that the horned toad would be happier back out in his home, the desert. It felt good to let him go.

Nowadays, I still see a horned toad once in a while, and when I do, I can’t help but remember the power of peace and forgiveness that I felt that day. I never want to be burned up with anger. God is the only power in my life. I really love that bringing ideas from the Bible to everyday life is not only interesting and fun, it actually heals.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 9:23 am and is filed under Bible Related, Friendship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.