Prayer

Daniel 9:1-19, Proverbs 20:24 & 21:1

Daniel, whose name means God is my judge, is a man of prayer.  Prayer is an indication to God of our heart.  Five characteristics that go with prayer are:  concentration, supplication, fasting, humility, and honesty.  Read Daniel's prayer and see if you can identify the five characteristics.  Notice that he used the word we in verse 5 not them.

Some background to Daniels prayer.

• We go back to the time of the judges and looked Judges 21:25.  When ever man does his own thing.  That is not good.

• In I Samuel 8:5 we learn that elders of Israel's primary reason to request a king was to be like other nations.  Maybe we could say they placed God in the position of co-pilot not pilot of the nation.  We can probably conclude that even that did not last long.

• II Chronicles 36:1-21.  The first part of this chapter is background to verse 21.  It is the 70 years in verse 21 that Daniel came to understand which as stated came from the mouth of Jeremiah.  See Jeremiah 25:1 & 29:10. 

• It is the decline of Israel and the forsaking God and going to other Gods that led to their punishment.  Daniel understood this and that was the reason and background for his prayer.

Our contemporary situation.

• Our contemporary situation here in the United States is certainly a state of decline.  It is this present day decline that should bring us to prayer much like we read in Daniel 9.  We need to pray for God's will to be done in our lives and this nation.