“Then he continued,
“Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain
understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard,
and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom
resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to
help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. Now I have come
to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision
concerns a time yet to come.”
Daniel 10:12-14
So often we use these
verses, rightfully so, to speak of spiritual warfare.
They also are a favorite
selection when the topic is persevering in prayer.
But also clear in
these verses is a lesson in having our prayers heard by God.
Why were Daniels’
words heard?
Why did his prayer
reach heaven?
There are two thing
recorded that Daniel did.
First, Daniel set his
mind to gain understanding.
His was not a
cavalier, lackadaisical approach in prayer but a determined and deliberate
desire to gain understanding.
Daniel was ‘invested’
in his prayer through focus and desire.
The second thing
Daniel did was to humble himself before God.
Pride has a way of
silencing our prayers faster than anything else.
When we come to God in
arrogance rather than humility we ought not to expect to hear Him.
We are told in James
4:7
“Submit yourselves,
then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
Pride turns that
verse upside down.
Pride causes us to
submit to the devil and resist God.
See how far that gets
you in prayer!
Can you say “It’s
pretty silent around here?”
Yes, Daniel’s answer
was delayed but not because his ‘posture’ in prayer was wrong.
He prayed in humble
expectation that God would give him the understanding he sought.
Do you pray in that
same humble faith and expectation?
Let’s examine this
thing called faith more closely this week.
Let’s, together,
humble ourselves before God and come
expecting to gain
understanding about the faith of God.
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