Daniel, one of the Jewish exiles, ignores you, O King, and defies your decree. Three times a day he prays.
Daniel 6:13 (Message Bible)
Hello Friend,
This morning I want to talk to you about prayer. Oh, I know you just woke up and have not had your second cup of coffee yet, and here I come with my Monday message hassling you. Or, you are already at work or busy tending the kids and think, “I have a heavy workload. I’m much too busy right now. Maybe later, I’ll pray.”
A little history: God’s people down in Babylon were in a sad state. How unhappy they were, far away from the land they loved. Statues and temples of detestable idols were everywhere. The Babylonians believed in many gods with a ruling god named Marduk. God’s people still knew the God of Judah was the only true God. When the kingdom was divided into 120 providences, Daniel and two others were chosen by the king to supervise the princes. Probably because of jealousy, the princes began searching for some fault in Daniel, and when none was found, the princes went to the king and told him to make a law that for the next 30 days anyone who prays to anyone, divine or human—except to Your Majesty—will be thrown to the lions. When Daniel heard the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day as he had always done. And as Paul Harvey would say, “You know the rest of the story.”
Ask yourself this morning, how would my life be different if there was a law forbidding me to pray? Would you continue to pray? Would you be willing to be thrown into the lion’s den for the opportunity to pray (our equivalent of capital punishment)? Would you pray in secret? Do you think that solution would be acceptable to God? In America, we have freedom of religion. Let’s exercise that freedom and get down on our knees and pray.
This Lenten season, I’m fasting from prayerless days, Linda
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