Magnificent Prayer #264
Magnificent Prayer #264
The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and He will show them His covenant.
Psalm 25:14 KJV
Then Daniel praised the God of heaven and said:
“Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his.
He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them.
He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him.
I thank and praise you, O God of my fathers: You have given me wisdom and power,
you have made known to me what we asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the king.”
Daniel 2:19–23
Daniel’s was a life of utmost devotion to his God. It centered wholly in Him. In intimate communion with the Lord he sought to know His mind and with equal fidelity to do His will. Resolutely determining at the outset, in the midst of adverse circumstances, to be separated from his God and well-pleasing unto Him, he grew in favor with God and in esteem with men.
Daniel’s prayer-life was seemingly its dominant characteristic, its ruling passion. When he had risen to the premiership of the realm, his political enemies plotted against him. They found but one vulnerable point—his habit of prayer. They acted upon the conviction that he would continue in it at all costs, even to death itself. And he did. But God’s answer to such devotion was his deliverance from the lions and his enemies’ destruction by them, much to the glorification of His name and worship under the king’s edict.
Daniel’s whole life, with the marvelous book that bears his name, is a remarkable testimony, not to the fact that God answers prayer, but to the manner in which He responds to such a life in the revealing of His mind and will. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and He will show them His covenant” (Ps. 25:14). The word for “secret” means counsel, the intimate converse of confidants or familiar friends. Doubtless this very scripture was Daniel’s frequent inspiration in prayer. It was thus he came to know the secret of the king’s dream and its interpretation. It was thus that the Lord entrusted him with the revealing of His prophetic program down to the end.
NORMAN B. HARRISON
Pray About It: God’s secrets are open to those who pray. The prayer closet is the chamber of revelation to the child of God. What was available to Daniel is ours as well.
Schedule time soon to read the book of Daniel, the story of one of God’s great pray-ers. His commitment will inspire you and add backbone to your prayer life.
Daniel wasn’t the only one to whom God revealed secrets; there were many others. And today, God continues to reveal secrets to those who know Him. But these secrets are shared in the silent times of prayer, not the hurried rote prayers we too often pray.
Settle into God today. Become the kind of person God can entrust with His secrets.
[It is here, in prayer] that the deep secrets are revealed, not by a momentary illumination, but in God Himself, where they are all hidden.
MADAME GUYON
From the book
