Daniel 10:2

Prayer is a much talked about, but little done, part of the Christian life. We live in a world of instantaneous action/reaction. If we want something, we usually press a button and there we have it – from coffee to clothes washing. But prayer operates on a different level – it involves patience and faith. [As a side note which just popped into my head – pushing buttons requires faith too – it is not immediately obvious that the button will do what we like it to, but we are condition over many uses of that button to believe that it will do as promised. It is a shame that with prayer we have not used it enough to always have the faith that it will work.]

Prayer can sometimes take days, weeks, years or even a lifetime to come to fruition, and then it may not turn out exactly the way you had planned it. For God has a different agenda to us at times, and He knows what is best for us. We receive great encouragement with regards to prayer, from Daniel chapter 10. We read:

‘In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant food, no meat or wine came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled.’ (Daniel 10:2)

Daniel is apparently grieving over the contents of a ‘message’ which I interpret as a vision (such as the one in chapter 8 or 9). We read in chapter 8 that he was sick ‘for days’ after one vision, so this fits. Now suddenly, a vision appears to him, of an angel-like man (in fact the vision is very similar to John’s vision of Christ – body like beryl, face like lightning, eyes torches of fire, arms and feet of burnished bronze etc.) He falls asleep flat on his face (I was more than a little mind-boggled by that), and then another hand touches him (MacArthur says it is most likely Gabriel). This angel tells him that he has been coming for 21 days, but has been held up by an evil angel (called the prince of Persia). What do you think went through Daniel’s mind?

Daniel had been fasting and praying for 3 weeks = 21 days. He had probably grown weary and started to get frustrated that his prayers weren’t answered, and now he is told that as soon as he started praying God had sent an angel (presumably to tell him the meaning of the dream or vision that troubled him), but that that angel had been held up by the forces of evil (we are told that Michael had to go help Gabriel defeat the prince of Persia). I don’t know if Daniel would have comprehended it all (I know I sure wouldn’t have), but he would have been encouraged that his prayers had not been falling on deaf ears all that time. He would have been encouraged that his continued fasting and mourning had led to his situation now. He didn’t give up after the first day or the first week, because he knew that God would eventually answer him. We need to do the same. Keep praying for things that we know are needed.