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Scripture Reading: 1 John 5:14; Psa. 119:147-148; Dan. 9
In Daniel 9 we should pay attention to two things concerning Daniel's prayer. First, a genuine man of prayer is not only one who comes before God continually but also one whose desires are fully blended into God's desires. In other words, his thoughts are fully one with God's thoughts. This is a very important principle in prayer.
Some prayers originate from our needs. Sometimes God answers these prayers, but He does not gain anything through these prayers. Psalm 106:15 says, "And He gave them their request,/But He sent leanness into their soul." What does this mean? This means that in the wilderness the Israelites prayed to God for the satisfaction of their lust, and God answered their prayer. He gave them what they wanted, yet they became weak before His eyes. Brothers and sisters, sometimes God answers our prayers to satisfy our needs. Yet these prayers do not satisfy God's desire. These prayers are of little worth.
There is another kind of prayer — one that originates from God's needs. It comes from God and is initiated by God. This kind of prayer is valuable. Those who have this kind of prayer must be in God's presence continually, and their desires and thoughts must be mingled with God's desires and thoughts. Because these ones live in God's presence continually, He shows them and touches them with His desires and thoughts. These desires and thoughts become the praying ones' desires, which in turn become their prayer.
We must learn to pray this kind of prayer. Although we are childish and weak, we must still come into His presence and allow His Spirit to mingle our desires with His desires and to lead our thoughts into His thoughts so that we can touch and participate in His desires and thoughts. If we do this, we will understand something of God's way and demands on man. Brothers and sisters, the more we enter into God's desires and thoughts, the more we will understand these desires and thoughts. Eventually, His desire will become our prayer. These prayers are precious. Daniel joined himself to God's thoughts; he touched God's desire and will, and they became the desires of Daniel's heart. God's desires were imprinted in Daniel and became Daniel's desires. When Daniel prayed according to these desires, crying out or groaning because of these desires, they became God's desires. We must have this kind of prayer, a prayer that touches God's heart. More words are not needed, only more of a touching of His desires is needed. We should allow God's Spirit to lead us into His heart. We should spend time to learn this lesson. When we first begin to pray in this way, there is no need to say or consider much. Our heart should be calm and undisturbed. We can bring the things we have encountered into God's presence and consider them, or we can forget about these things and simply meditate on God's Word. We can remain in His presence, touching God in our spirit and allowing God to touch us in the spirit. Actually, we do not have to go to God to touch Him; we can simply wait on Him. While we wait on Him in this way, something will come to our attention, and we will gain something. Then we will touch God's desire. The greatest wisdom comes from this kind of waiting. In this way our desires are mingled with God's desires, and our thoughts are one with God's thoughts. Based on this, we can pray to God.
When we bring our desires and thoughts to God, He will imprint His desires and thoughts into us to the extent that they become our desires and thoughts. These prayers are the most precious of all prayers; they are the most weighty prayers. Brothers and sisters, we have to remember the Lord's Word, which tells us to pray this way: "Our Father who is in the heavens, Your name be sanctified; Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth" (Matt. 6:9-10). We should not just memorize these three sentences. They should afford God's Spirit the opportunity to bring our thoughts to God so that His desires and thoughts can be imprinted in us and become our desires and thoughts. When that happens, the prayers that we utter will be valuable.
The same thing can result in two different kinds of prayers. One kind of prayer originates from our own desire; we pray according to our own concepts and wishes. God may answer these prayers, but there is very little value to these prayers. However, if we bring this matter to the Lord and His Spirit mingles our desire with His desire, leads our thoughts into His thoughts, and imprints His desires and thoughts into us, we will find ourselves having intense desires and thoughts. If God is grieved and sorrowful over man's condition of death, the same grief and sorrow will be imprinted in us, and we will have a desire to see man delivered from death. There will be a groaning within that will be turned into prayer. If God is grieved and anxious over His children's failures and this is imprinted in us, we will also have a desire to see that none of His children fall into sin or darkness. We will utter such prayers and supplications from within; we will confess our sins and ask for His forgiveness and cleansing of His children. One kind of prayer issues from man's own will, while another kind of prayer is based on the desire which comes as a result of the imprint of God's desire. These two kinds of prayers are different. Brothers and sisters, when we come to God and His desires are imprinted in us, these desires will become our breath and groaning. Prayers that are precious and weighty are those that are based on inward desires.
God has much work to do on earth; there are many things He wants to accomplish. We cannot pray according to our own feelings or thoughts; rather, we should come before His presence and draw near to Him and look to Him. We should allow Him to imprint us with the things that He wants to do on earth and turn them into our groaning. When we draw near to God, He may imprint the desire in us to preach the gospel. We will have a desire within to preach the gospel, and this desire will become a burden. When we pray according to this burden, there will be nothing but this burden in our groaning. Brothers and sisters, when we draw near to God in this way, He may reveal more of His desires, and more will be imprinted in us. When God imprints His desires into a person, he will turn God's desires into his own and pray accordingly. When Daniel went to the Lord, he touched something. When he prayed and groaned for what he had touched, the prayer became precious and weighty. It became something that sanctified God's name, something that brought in His kingdom, and something that enabled His will to be done on earth.
Second, we should also realize that this kind of prayer will shake the seat of Hades and affect Satan. Hence, he will frustrate such prayers. Any prayer that comes from God will inevitably touch the power of darkness. This will bring in the spiritual warfare. Our bodies, families, and everything around us will come under Satan's attack. Whenever we pray this way, we will become vulnerable to Satan's attacks. He will attack until we cannot go on in our prayer. He will even try to stop us by nullifying our prayers and delaying their answers. A prayer may deserve immediate answer, yet it may still hang in the air. God answered Daniel's prayer, but Satan hindered the answer to his prayer for twenty-one days. Daniel went down on his knees and waited until the answer to his prayer arrived. Brothers and sisters, have you ever wondered why your prayers have not been answered quickly? Perhaps it has been less than twenty-one days since you prayed! Perhaps the throne has answered your prayer, but the answer is hindered and still in the air; there is the need for prayer on earth, the need for men to endure in the presence of the Lord, and the need for some to go down on their knees.
Brothers and sisters, if we come to God and remain calm before Him, giving up our thoughts to enter into His thoughts, we will see the great need for prayer, we will see that God is waiting for us to pray about so many things, and we will see that everything around can become the subject of our prayer. In fact the whole earth can become the subject of our prayer. We should not pray according to our feelings. We must mingle our desires with God's desires and allow God's desires to become our desires, groanings, and yearnings for the universe. God's desires cannot be released without first passing through man, and God's desires, when expressed through man's desires, will be opposed by the power of Satan. In order to fulfill God's desire, we have to pray, and in order to remove Satan's frustration, we have to pray. We have to exercise the authority of prayer and release what should be released and bind what should be bound. We should not pray according to our own desire; we should go to the Lord and pray according to the desire that He has imprinted in us. When God says that something is needed, we should say the same, and when He says that something cannot remain, we should also say the same. We should forget about ourselves and touch God's desire and express His desire through our prayer.
