Fast Like Danielনমুনা

A Call to Prayer

In today’s reading we’ll see Daniel’s enemies couldn’t find anything to use to trip him up—so they cooked up a plan to get him in trouble for praying. 

Could your enemies do the same? Or would a law about prayer not really cramp your style? Daniel prayed humbly before God three times a day, and it definitely got him in trouble. If we threw Christians in jail for praying publicly three times a day, I don’t think we’d have prison overcrowding problems. 

Daniel’s prayer got him in trouble, but it also got him out, because God is crazy powerful. And our prayers are powerful when they are humble.

But how often do you see humility promoted in our world? Probably about as often as Daniel’s world. Oh, we see plenty of people in church claiming the virtue of humility. You know what I’m talking about—the people who walk around and say, “I’m so humble!” Give me a break; if you’re humble, you don’t have to let everyone know. Humility is not something that you do or say, it’s the essence of who you are.

“True Humility” is distinctly different from “False Humility.” True Humility is about recognizing that all good and perfect gifts, talents, and successes come from God. False Humility is about deprecating one’s own sanctity, successes, gifts, talents, and accomplishments for the sake of receiving praise or flattery from other people.

Daniel wasn’t just a person of prayer, he was a man of True Humility before God. Think of the integrity and the hunger you see in Daniel as he prays three times a day on his knees before God. He wasn’t demanding anything of the Lord; three times a day he humbly sought God out of his own need.

When’s the last time you got on your knees to pray? When’s the last time you felt truly humble in prayer, rather than just asking God for things? If it’s been a while, you might want to try it.

The Bible says it this way: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (1 Peter 5:6). Daniel did it three times a day on his knees. How will you do it today and over the next three weeks?