My Wonder Studio

One day, King Nebuchadnezzar set up a great golden statue. When certain music was played, everyone was supposed to bow down and worship the statue. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego loved and worshipped God, so they could not love and worship the statue.

King Nebuchadnezzar got very angry with them and said they must die. The three brave young men were tied up and thrown into a huge burning fiery furnace! When the king looked into the furnace, he saw them walking in the fire with a shining man who looked like the Son of God. The king asked them to come out, and out came Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were not burned at all!

Nebuchadnezzar saw that God could keep His children safe even in a huge fire. Then he told everyone to worship the living God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego instead of a lifeless gold statue.

God gave Jesus great power to do wonderful things to help people so that everyone would know that Jesus was really God’s Son. Jesus did many miracles. He healed diseases that no one else could heal. He caused blind people to see, crippled people to walk, deaf people to hear, and He even brought dead people back to life again. Jesus did many other things that seemed impossible too. He walked on the surface of the water, made storms suddenly stop, told people what they were thinking, turned water into wine, and fed thousands of people using only a few loaves of bread and a few fish.

Moses, Jochebed’s son, grew up in the palace of the king of Egypt. Even though he was a prince of Egypt, he still loved his own people of Israel whom the king had made slaves. Moses wanted to free them. God wanted to free them too so that they could go and live in the land that He had promised Abraham that He would give them.

So God told Moses to be brave and tell the king to let the people go. The king would not obey. So God let all kinds of bad things happen to him and his people to make him change his mind. When the king finally gave the people of Israel permission to leave, Moses led all of them—there were millions of them—out of Egypt. The king thought that the people would have to stop at the Red Sea, and then the king’s army would be able to bring them back to be his slaves again.

Mrs. MacKintrick was an elderly woman who lived in the beautiful countryside of Scotland. Because Mrs. MacKintrick was too poor to pay her rent, the congregation of her church kindly paid it for her.

Once a month, the kindhearted Pastor Bruce delivered the rent money to her. During one of those visits in the course of their conversation, he asked her, “Mrs. MacKintrick, the members of our congregation wanted me to ask you a question. We cannot understand why your son does not support you. We have heard he has a very good job in Australia.”

“William is a good son,” said Mrs. MacKintrick. “He remembers to write me every week. Would you like to see one of his letters?”

Curious to know more of such a son who loved his mother so dearly and yet left her without support, the pastor agreed that he would like to read some of William’s letters.

Mrs. MacKintrick returned with two packages and handed one to Pastor Bruce.

As Pastor Bruce untied the string, Mrs. MacKintrick said, “With every letter, William always sends me a small pretty picture.”

Pastor Bruce was more curious than ever. “A picture in every letter? May I also see the pictures?”

“Oh, surely!” answered Mrs. MacKintrick, and handed him the contents of the other package. “Some are of a man’s head, some of a man sitting on a horse, and some have the king’s picture on them. Long live the king!”

In astonishment, Pastor Bruce said, “Long live your son, Mrs. MacKintrick! Why, you are a rich woman! These pretty pictures are money. Why, to think you have suffered without enough to live on for so long, when all the while, right here in your house you had the wealth of this income from your son, but you thought these bills were just pretty pictures!”

Many people look on the promises in the Bible in much the same way, as simply nice words or “pretty pictures.” However, the promises in God’s Word are there to encourage our faith that God will take care of us, and that He wants us to ask for His help in time of need.

The Bible says, “He has granted to us His precious and very great promises” (2 Peter 1:4 ESV).