Thoughts for another day

March 3, 2010

Today's verse: Dan. 9:18. O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies. (KJV)
(Pls. read the above before you read further. Thanks)

People around the world intercede; God will be getting billions of requests each day from those that swarm the face of the earth and because He is God, He can decipher those asked with faith and those without; those with humility and those without; as well as those asked sincerely and those without. Our scripture today can easily go into the books of prayers one can make, with assurance that God will answer. It’s a type most sincere, according to God all glory, supremacy and authority. It has a pleading through eyes filled with tears, longing and hope: a hope in God so strong, it ceases to look upon self as a worthy beneficiary rather depending solely on His goodness and mercy to grant the petition. It’s indeed a sincere and most striking presentation of need before God and I’d like to stress the underlined portion where the prophet assumes no righteousness of his own.

Before God we’re nothing. The Bible says we’re like a wisp of smoke, here a moment and then brushed by the wind, or a blade of grass that’s there but a moment, then trampled underfoot. When we remind God of this our condition and plead before Him recalling His Own grandeur and exalting His lofty status even more, God answers and we see in v 23, of the same chapter, that Daniel’s petition was answered. Beloved of God, how can a just and merciful God refuse a prayer seeking to make the petitioner nothing and Him everything? God can’t help but answer such prayer. Do you remember the Canaanite woman pleading with Jesus to cure her daughter? Jesus in a way is forced to say, ‘Oh, woman, great is your faith; be it done as you wilt.’ Mt. 15:22-28.

When you pray, let me use a cliché, pray as if everything depended on it. Thump your heart, beat your chest, cry, let your body writhe in pain and anguish; remember Samuel’s mother Hannah? She appeared to be drunk to Eli the priest, but did she move the heart of God!!! My friend there’s no such think like a powerful prayer which someone gives printed on a piece of paper, but your prayer can be powerful when you exercise your whole body, your whole being in humiliation and cry unto God; making it so effective that God cannot escape not granting it, but dare I mutter, is obliged, to say, ‘Go, let it be done to you as you wilt!’