Year 0, Day 9: Daniel 9

Prayer

This is a great split passage.  First and foremost, let’s look at Daniel’s prayer.  You see, prayer has been the area of my own life that has undergone the greatest change for the past few months.  Our congregation has just started up a weekly prayer group - of which I couldn’t attend last week and this coming week I will likewise miss L - and they have been teaching me a lot about prayer.  I had no idea I could enjoy prayer so much as to spend an hour in communal prayer!  It blows my mind to think that Sunday evenings I spend as much time in prayer with a group of individuals as I spend Sunday morning in worship!  And trust me when I tell you, the prayer group time goes by so much more quickly!

Anyway, I digress – but I do so to illustrate why I am focusing on the prayer of Daniel in this blog.  One of the fundamental beliefs that I have about prayer is that there are certain elements that a “formed prayer” should contain.  Not that it is wrong if it doesn’t contain it, but to be a well-rounded prayer I think it is wise to contain a few elements.  Specifically, I think prayer should include a clear address of the one to whom the person is praying, a time to praise that being, a time for personal confession/repentance, a time to petition the subject of the prayer on behalf of others, and a time to petition the subject of the prayer on behalf of oneself.  It looks like this: Praise, Repentance, Ask for others, Yourself.  Nicely, notice that the letters of each section spell out the word pray.  {For the record, I’ve also seem Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication}

When I read Daniel’s prayer, I couldn’t help but notice just how much of it was confession.  Daniel spends a significant amount of the time praying while doing confession. He confesses the people’s disobedience, laissez-faire attitude towards God’s law, their deafness towards God’s prophets, and fully acknowledges that the people deserve wrath.  This is indeed a powerful prayer!

But I am struck at the difference between this prayer and the prayers that I often pray.  All too often I skip over confession and do a really poor job of acknowledging to whom I am speaking in the first place.  I jump straight to whatever is on my mind – whether it be my own needs or the needs of others.  Perhaps I should take a greater look at Daniel’s prayer and remember that if the Holy Scriptures lifts this prayer up as a great example of prayer, then I still have a long way to go before I can say I know much about great prayer.

I’m also left wondering why we don’t hear much confession in prayer today.  We hear great flowing prayers about people’s needs and our desire for God to intercede … but why not great confessional prayer?  I think there are two reasons. 

First, we do not live in a culture of trust anymore.  I cannot trust my faults to the general public – or even to the people with whom I generally gather in worship.  If trust is a lost art, the confession in the midst of corporate prayer is a dangerous thing. 

Second, in order to have a great confessional life one must know the Law well.  One must know the law – or know someone who is great at revealing the law to you – in order to have the law held up to us like a mirror so that we can see our transgressions.  I think we have really lost a sense of knowing the law.  As a people, I think we have a weakness about knowing for certain what God’s ways truly are.  We are great at telling people what we think God’s ways should be … but we are poor at actually knowing the depth and breadth of God’s ways. 

Put those two together – not knowing the law and not have a spiritual trust with our neighbor – and we end up with “safe prayers” that only speak of publically acceptable known needs.  And I think we’re missing out in that regard.

Gabriel and the Answer

Gabriel’s answer speaks a good bit about timing.  The truth is that we don’t know what the timing is about.  We don’t know when the timing begins or when it ends.  About the only thing that we can say for certain is the significance of the number 7 throughout all of the timing.  Seven represents completion, and the answer to Daniel’s prayer certainly speaks to completion.

What we can say is that there are six really neat outcomes to Daniel’s prayer.  God tells Daniel that He is working toward accomplishing each of these six outcomes:

1. Bring an End to the Transgression.  What is transgression except humanity’s rebellion against God?  How is the transgression brought to an end?  Transgression ends through the coming of God’s Messiah, when people dismiss their own agendas and instead humbly submit to God.
2. Put an End to Sin.  How is sin brought to an end?  It is sealed up forever when Jesus takes the totality of human sinfulness upon Himself on the cross.
3. Atone for Iniquity.  How does God reach atonement?  Atonement is achieved through blood sacrifice.  How will God put bring atonement to reality?  God will send His Messiah – Jesus Christ – the die on the cross so that through the shedding of blood God will atone for our sinfulness.
4. Bring about an Everlasting Righteousness.  Through Jesus Christ we can enter into a new kingdom.  We can receive the Holy Spirit.  We can be have the assurance of participating in an everlasting kingdom that will have no end because our righteousness comes through Christ.
5. Seal Vision and Prophecy.  God will fulfill His covenants and promises to His people.  They will be brought out of captivity.  God’s Messiah will come.  All that God said will come to pass shall come to pass.
6. Anoint a Most Holy Place.  God will anoint His Messiah.  Christ will create His temple – His church.  That church will always be holy.

In answer to Daniel’s prayer, God informs Daniel that the overall plan is still intact.  He is still holy.  God’s people will still see their Messiah.  Salvation will come.  Sin will be dealt with.  The sinfulness and rebellion of Israel – or all humanity for that matter – will not interfere with the awesomeness of God’s plan.