Week 24 · about 45 minutes
Daniel in the Lions’ Den
Daniel 6 · Memory verse Daniel 6:22
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Queues the lesson plan, this story’s coloring page (Daniel and the Lions), the matching word search and answer key (Daniel and the Lions), the memory-verse tracer, and a parent slip.
Five-minute object lesson
Prop: paper lion masks that stay quiet
Hold up paper lion masks that stay quiet. In about five minutes, tell the class this: Daniel keeps praying when a law forbids it, and God stays with him among the lions. Show the prop and ask, “What does this have to do with Daniel in the Lions’ Den?” Let two children answer. Then read Daniel 6:22 together: “My God has sent his angel, and has shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not hurt me; because as before him innocence was found in me; and also before you, O king, I have done no harm.”” Close by asking one child to say the lesson back in their own words, using the prop.
Story script
Daniel was a wise helper to the king, and he prayed three times a day toward Jerusalem with his windows open. Other officials were jealous. They tricked the king into a law: for thirty days, anyone who prayed to any god or person except the king would be thrown to the lions.
Daniel heard the law. He went home, knelt at his windows, and prayed anyway, giving thanks as he always had. He was not showing off. He was refusing to pretend that the king was God. The officials caught him, and the king, trapped by his own law, had Daniel lowered into the den. The king spent the night unable to eat or sleep.
At dawn the king hurried to the den and called out. Daniel answered. God had sent an angel and shut the lions’ mouths. Daniel was lifted out, unharmed, because he had trusted God.
You may never see a lions’ den. You will see moments when doing the right thing is unpopular: telling the truth, praying, being kind when a group is cruel. God can shut mouths you are afraid of. Keep the windows of your heart open toward him.
Group game
Daniel kneels to pray while lions sit still. The class may not roar until the leader says the angel shut their mouths, then the lions purr instead.
Craft
Draw Daniel praying and calm lions. Write I will pray anyway.
Memory verse
Daniel 6:22
“My God has sent his angel, and has shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not hurt me; because as before him innocence was found in me; and also before you, O king, I have done no harm.””
Take-home prayer
God, give me Daniel’s steady heart. Help me pray and do right, and stay with me when I feel afraid. Amen.