Prayer 101

Dan.9:¹⁹ “O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, listen and act! For your own sake, do not delay, O my God, for your people and your city bear your name.”

Prayer is the bedrock of Daniel’s life and strength. The truth is that seasons come, and seasons go but people that are given to prayer usually will outlast seasons. You and I need to learn from Daniel, how to dig deep into God, plant our roots there and remain. If you will do these things, regardless of the season, you will be standing. However, we find that the things that are good for us are not necessarily palatable to our taste. I have watched mothers trying to get their children to eat vegetables and most times it is a huge struggle.

Broccoli is one vegetable that I particularly dislike, I think it looks intimidating. Most children usually have to be forced to eat broccoli. However, the benefits of broccoli to our health and wellbeing are amazing. If you want to train your child to love vegetables, let him or her taste veggies first and keep sugar away. Once a child discovers sugar, the child would not want to eat vegetables anymore. Like broccoli, there are a lot of things that we do not particularly like the “taste” but we like the benefits. For a lot of people, prayer is one of such things. A lot of people do not like the “taste”, but the benefits of prayer are out of this world. Please study Daniel 9:3-19, it is the anchor text for our discourse over the next few days.

We see littered all over the Book of Daniel that prayer was not an occasional thing for Daniel. For Daniel, prayer was not a last resort, not about feelings, not about how agreeable the environment was, and it was not about getting a breakthrough. Prayer for Daniel was a way of life. Dan.9:³ “So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and fasting. I also wore rough burlap and sprinkled myself with ashes.” [with emphasis]. “I turned to the Lord”, that alone is big! People are quick to turn to different things but to pray, you must first turn to God. Most times when we lift up our voices amidst pain, it may sound funny, but some people think they are in the right and that God you could have done better to them. People actually say things like, “Yes I am not perfect, but I am better than some other people, so I deserve better.” When we examine the prayer of Daniel closely, we see that Daniel recognized that when you stand before God, it is between you and God. When you stand before God, it is not between you, God, and your sister, or your neighbor, or your boss. It is between you and God and that in its self is huge.

Prayer: Holy Spirit, I bring my prayer life before You and I give You free sway, build, transform, change, align my heart with God’s heart in prayer, in Jesus Name. Amen!