He Hears

Scripture Reading: Daniel 10:12

Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.

We need to be cautious about making hard-fast rules about some spiritual disciplines. Prayer is one of those areas of life that we can treat it like a mechanical exercise whereby if we get all of the various elements just right we are guaranteed that it will be a successful endeavor. We try to turn everything into a “Five-step program.” Prayer is no exception.

I wanted to say that first, because what I am about to say might be taken as me proposing a rule for effective prayer. In reality, what we see throughout the Bible is very diverse patterns of prayer. Some prayers are long, some are short. Some are deeply emotional, others not so much. Some are filled with thanksgiving, while others are imprecatory in nature. Some people pray with their faces to the ground, others while standing and looking up into the heavens. There is no one way to pray.

This is meant as an encouragement to pray, not to pray in a certain way. What is encouraging here is that the angel tells Daniel that his words were heard. That is emphasized in that it is repeated. Daniel’s heart was in it. He was humble. He was open and submissive to what and how God might answer. But the emphasis here seems to be that the Lord heard what Daniel said in his prayer.

It isn’t necessary to say what you want to say perfectly. If that were the case, we would never get any good praying done. It is important to tell God what you want. It is not that God doesn’t know what is on your heart. It isn’t that God is ignorant about your needs or desires. It is that saying it is a way of expressing faith. Saying it says that you believe God has the power to do something about it. Saying it says that you believe God cares about you and your needs.

James said, “You have not because you ask not.”

Be assured today, when you say it, God hears your words. They have been heard.