At one time I was struggling with aggressive flu symptoms. Also, while this was going on, our horse came up lame in two legs. She had great difficulty staying on her feet. One evening as I prayed about each of these situations, I realized I was doubting my ability to beat the symptoms of flu. And the fear loomed large that the horse might not recover, or that if she did, it might take a while.
Recognizing that these unhealthy suggestions needed to be expelled from my thinking, I earnestly prayed to God, asking Him to show me just what I needed to know. When I set the Bible in my lap, it fell open to the book of Daniel, chapter 3. This chapter tells about a large golden idol that was set up in the province of Babylon by king Nebuchadnezzar.
Living in Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom were three Hebrew men—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—who revered and worshiped God. They would not worship the golden idol. Furious, the king had them thrown into a burning furnace. But these young men were unharmed. And in the furnace with them there appeared what looked to the king like a fourth man, whose form, he said, "is like the Son of God." Nebuchadnezzar immediately called the men to come out of the fire and exonerated them of wrongdoing. He said, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God."
