The Holy Bible offers readers opportunities to learn about people who are not so unlike us—individuals who are facing challenges, feeling doubts, and occasionally sliding backward. Their experiences can help us forgive ourselves and others as we make spiritual progress.
As I was reading the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (see Daniel 3), I was struck by the name of the king who had thrown them in the furnace—Nebuchadnezzar. I recognized his name from the very next story (see Daniel 4), where Daniel prophesied that Nebuchadnezzar would lose his kingdom. And I started to wonder: Why hadn’t the king learned his lesson when he saw that the fourth man in the furnace was “like the Son of God”? Why did he need to lose everything? Wasn’t the experience of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego enough?
The king wasn’t the only one. How often do we have a healing and then go back to old ways of thinking and acting?
