DOING devotionals for young kiddos
Daniel chapter 5 has a humbling story about King Belshazzar who ruled Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar. The King hosts a jolly party for many guests. The King orders the special serving pieces that had been captured with Israel to be brought out. As they are merrily eating and drinking from the sacred goblets taken from the temple of Jerusalem, a shocking thing happens. Suddenly, the words "Numbered, Measure, Divided" appear mysteriously on the wall. The King and his guests are terrified! They eventually call Daniel to explain the meaning. Daniel tells King Belshazzar that this is a message from the true God. God is not pleased with Belshazzar's actions, and is going to take his kingdom away. That very night, Persian soldiers take the King captive and the city is taken over.
The well known story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is found in Daniel 3. Daniel and his friends have become targets for the other "wise men" in Babylon because of the success the Lord has given them. Therefore, the others desire to kill the Israelite advisors. The Babylonions seize the opportunity when King Nebuchadnezzar builds a huge statue as a tribute to himself and his victory. The King demands that everyone bow and worship the statue, when signaled. However, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego know that the LORD God is the only one worthy of worship, so they refuse to bow to a statue. As punishment, they are thrown into a huge furnace filled with a raging fire. The Bible tells us the fire was so hot that even the gaurds throwing the men into the fire are scorched. However, when the King looks into the furnace later, he not only sees the three Israelite men walking around unharmed, but also a fourth man is in the furnace with them, WOW! The King brings them out and demands everyone to honor the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Today we tried a different activity than we have done in the past. Both Von and Alyse drew pictures of the three Israelites on a piece of paper. Because Knox is three and just learning to enjoy drawing, he got the job of creating fire. He used a red wet-erase marker and covered a large (quart size) mason jar with "fire." You can use a dry-erase marker or even a regular washable marker with varying results, just be sure to test it on the bottom and make sure it will wash off after the activity. Anyway, we acted out the story with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refusing to bow to the "statue." Then we rolled the paper so it would fit inside the jar. It looked like they were on fire. We added a fourth guy to the jar, and remarked that they did not look burned!
In Daniel 2 the story of Nebuchadnezzar having a perplexing dream is told. The King demanded someone to tell him what dream he had, as well as what it meant. When none of the "wise men" in the palace were able to do this, the King demanded that ALL wise men be put to death. This included some of the Israelite nobles living in Babylon. When Daniel heard that he and his friends would be put to death, he beseeched his friends to beg the Lord for the dream and interpretation. The Lord did give Daniel the dream and Daniel relayed it to the King. The dream involved a statue made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, clay. Different parts of the statue represented different kingdoms that God would establish.
Before we started reading Daniel, we went through a little background on why the Israelites were living in Babylon. The Action Bible has a good couple of stories before Daniel recounting Israel's turning to other God's and God allowing them to be taken captive. Daniel 1 opens with Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego living in the palace in Babylon and being trained by King Nebuchadnezzar's men. These four Israelite young men are given the "awesome privilege" of eating and learning like Babylonion noblemen. In today's story they are given choice food from the King's table. However, the four Israelites know that the King's food has been dedicated to the Babylonian Idols, and is unclean for them to eat. Therefore they ask to eat only vegetables and water. The King's servants are afraid they will not be healthy enough but agree to their request for a ten day trial period. At the end of the ten days, the Israelites are found to be in stellar condition. God's instructions really were for their benefit.
We used fruit/veggies to paint this time. If you do not want to use actual food you can easily use celery stalks that would otherwise be thrown away or any kind of tree/bush limb. It is simply fun for the kids to paint using something unusual. As they paint, review the story. Be sure to help them understand the point of the story is not actually to "eat your vegetables" (although they ARE good for you,) but the point is that obedience to God's ways are actually for OUR good.
