Persist In Prayer

Then he said, “Don’t be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your request has been heard in heaven. I have come in answer to your prayer. But for twenty-one days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me, and I left him there with the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia. Now I am here to explain what will happen to your people in the future, for this vision concerns a time yet to come.” [Daniel 10.12-14]

I would like to have cut-n-pasted the entire chapters 10 and 11 here, but for sake of space, I have limited my selection to this short passage.

I am seeing something about prayer from this passage. While the story encompasses a much larger picture, the obvious fact about prayer stands out to me today like a neon sign.

Daniel had been praying for three weeks. He had actually been mourning and exercising not a total fast but a selective one. For twenty-one days, Daniel was engaged in this process of self-denial and prayer. For twenty-one days Daniel apparently had no indication that he was being heard by God. For twenty-one days, Daniel persisted in prayer.

And then, it happened. Daniel was given a vision, and in that vision, a play-by-play summary of events yet to come - a prophecy. Daniel encountered an angel sent from God. The story became a profound Bible story with implications that would carry forward even to the time of this writing.

I wonder what would have happened if Daniel had given up praying on day 20?

Father, help me to persist in prayer.