Sunday, May 16, 2021

Sunday Thought: Part Three of Five - Pleading in Prayer


 

The Choice to be Fearless

Darius tossed and turned all night. He could not eat and he could not sleep. Early the next morning, Darius ran to the lions’ den, calling out, “‘Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?’ Daniel answered, ‘O king, live forever! My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me’” (6:20–22). The overjoyed Darius scooped Daniel up out of the den, then immediately executed the men who had hatched the plot. He then proceeded to issue a decree that everyone in his kingdom was to fear and reverence the God of Daniel. Listen to Darius’ testimony: “For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end” (6:26). God was glorified!

Which makes me wonder what my choices really reveal. When I pray, God, be glorified in my life, do I truly mean it? Am I willing to back up that request with choice after choice after choice to lay everything on the line...

reputation, position, education...
ministry, marriage, motives...
safety, success, strategy...
family, future, finances...
children, career, comfort...
dreams, desires, duties...
time, talents, treasures...
My whole life...
and trust it all to Him?

If you and I rarely exercise our faith, how can we be surprised when it’s too weak for anyone to notice? Too weak to move others to recognize and acknowledge that our God is God? Too weak to be contagious? Daniel’s choice to trust God repeatedly, regardless of how difficult or dangerous the situation was, impresses me that he wanted to serve a God who is God. If God was unable to come through for him—if He was unable to “push the wheelbarrow across the tightrope over Niagara Falls”—then He wasn’t a God worth knowing. Or serving. Or risking his life for.

But the truth was that Daniel’s God is God. With years of experience to back him up, he knew when he prayed that he was speaking to a living Person who would listen and respond to him. Again and again, as he had relied on God, God had been there for him. God had intervened miraculously in his circumstances and honored his trust in many ways.

But even more than the knowledge that God is real, Daniel was supremely confident that the living God of the universe was committed to him. He had established a personal, covenant relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This confidence comes through clearly when he relates, “I prayed to the Lord my God . . .” (9:4). Daniel knew that God was his, and he was God’s. And it is this covenant relationship with God that is the bedrock of the Daniel Prayer. There was not a shred of doubt in Daniel’s mind that God would hear his prayer. And God would answer.

Confident Faith in God’s Covenant

Daniel would have entered into a covenant with God as a result of growing up a Jewish boy. The covenant was claimed by his parents, who would have had him circumcised on the eighth day of his life as an outward sign of it. Daniel’s willing participation in the sacrificial system and the ceremonies in the temple further solidified his relationship with God.

Even in his old age, his memories of the temple sacrifices were precious to him because his participation had been heartfelt, not just ritualistic or traditional (9:21). He knew the living God was his God. When God had come through for him when he had made his choices again and again to trust Him completely under great pressure and risk to himself, he was increasingly confident that God claimed him also.

A covenant relationship with God is a vitally important necessity in prayer. While God can hear and answer any prayer He chooses, when you and I come to Him in a covenant relationship, we are guaranteed He will listen to us and will answer us. So, before beginning the actual words of the Daniel Prayer, it’s to our benefit to determine if we are in a covenant relationship with God. Are you? I am.




This devotional is drawn from The Daniel Prayer: Prayer That Moves Heaven and Changes Nations by Anne Graham Lotz. Used by permission

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