Daniel 9:18

Most of Daniel 9 is a plea to God, and a beautiful one. I would like to just focus on one verse briefly:

‘O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies.’ (Daniel 9:18)

Sometimes it’s all we want – for God to hear us, to incline His ear and hear our supplications and see our desolations. We want Him to see how lonely we are, how wrecked, how depressed, how sorry, how regretful, how tired, how hurt. It’s not always the good things, and it’s not always the bad. So often He is our last resort, when He needn’t be – but sometimes He is our first resort, and we still have fears and worries to unload.

I was caught by the phrase, ‘for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies.’ How true is this? Nothing we bring before God we can justify by our own actions or even our heart. Rather, we constantly bring Him our troubles because we know and have experienced His great mercy, His great care. We know He will listen, and we know He will help. Oh what peace and joy the Christian life contains!