Daniel's Prayer

This amazing prayer (and God's response to it) is an inspirational guide for anyone who loves the Lord and who intercedes for others in prayer. One of the reasons this passage is so encouraging is found in verse 23...

There we read that God acted "at the beginning of your supplications" or in other words, as soon as Daniel started to pray - God commanded some amazing things to be done. This is encouraging because...

A. God is responding to Daniel's heart - not his words. When we pray - we should be most concerned with whether or not our heart is right before Him. Our words may seem to fall short and indeed sometimes we don't know what to say - but if our heart is like Daniel's, we can be assured that God hears and responds.

B. God responded immediately - but Daniel did not know God had already answered the prayer. This is how it is for us as well. Our Father is always immediately responding to our prayers - but we do not always see the results right away. Like Daniel, we too must press on in faith - believing God for great things - for ourselves and also for our people.

C. God responds to us when we speak to Him. In this passage he commanded the angel Gabriel to visit Daniel (something He would do again with Zacharias in Luke 1). It is so important to remember that even our weakest prayers are evoking a response from our loving Father. I believe one of those responses may be that He sends out angels to us, which is an encouraging thought. But more importantly than what He does in response to our prayers is simply THAT He responds. We may not always feel it or know what the response is - but we should believe that He is responding out of His love for us and that in His mercy He will make that response known to us in due time.

Created about 1 year ago