“ To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame” (v. He laments Israel’s sin that landed them in exile, but he doesn’t see himself as outside of that sin: People of prayer mostly do their work on their own.ĭaniel reads that the captivity in Babylon is nearing the end (Jer. “ But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Mat 6:6) 1423) and He taught it in His most famous sermon: Jesus modeled this as He went off by Himself to pray (Mt. While Scripture makes it clear that the church ought to come together to pray, it also resounds with the notion that we must be individuals of prayer. Not only does Daniel show his courage, but he demonstrates that he made it his practice to pray by himself. Daniel, as they knew he would, ignored this and “got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks to his God, as he had done previously” (6:10). Thus, they convinced King Darius to make a law prohibiting all prayer, except to the king. Looking for way to oust the old man, Daniel’s envious colleagues knew that they wouldn’t be able to get any dirt on him unless it was in regard to his God. However, sometimes we need to storm the throne room of heaven en masse, bringing our requests to the Father. Prayer is often a solo activity (as we’ll see shortly). Together, they sought the mercy of God and asked Him to miraculously spare their lives (2:17-19). Then he gathered his friends together to pray. When young Daniel got this news, he acted in faith, telling the king he would have the answer for him soon. When the veteran dream interpreters failed, Nebuchadnezzar demanded that all the wisemen be executed. As a rookie in the group, Daniel was not in the first wave of wisemen called to help the king with this problem. The impossible task I mentioned earlier was to not only interpret one of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, but also to tell him what the dream was. As an exile living away from his family, synagogue, and teachers, Daniel teaches us that in every stage of life, we must be people of prayer. Prayer doesn’t become a habit just because a person’s hair has turned gray. And no doubt he prayed throughout the decades in between. He prays as a teenager when faced with an impossible task given by King Nebuchadnezzar he prays as an octogenarian hated by his jealous underlings in Daniel 6. A consistent piece of his life is prayer. Nebuchadnezzar captured Daniel and his buddies Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah when they were very young men (probably mid-teens) and we see glimpses of Daniel working in the palace until he’s well over 80 years old. The book of Daniel covers roughly the 70 years that Judah (the southern kingdom of Israel) was exiled in Babylon. While we can learn much from these events (they’re recorded in Scripture for a reason, after all), looking at the life of Daniel can teach us many other things as well, particularly about prayer. He refused to eat the king’s meat he interpreted the mysterious handwriting on the wall and he survived a night in a den of hungry lions. We know him from his brave moments standing up for Yahweh in a foreign land.
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