OLD TESTAMENT PRAYERS
Introduction
We are so glad you are joining us for these daily prayer posts. Over the next few weeks we are going to listen to the prayers we find in the Bible, and some of God’s most faithful saints and servants. Through their prayers, we will learn better how to pray and connect with our heavenly Father.
Each devotion will take less than ten minutes of your time.
- We will look at an insight from those who know something important about prayer.
- We will listen to the prayers of people in the Bible—people just like us. And to people who gained a deep measure of spiritual intimacy with God because they prayed.
- We will reflect, asking the same four questions each day that invites us to look and listen with intent.
- And we will pray, for it is in praying that we learn to pray. And it is in praying that the Spirit changes our hearts.
We want to encourage you to grab a journal or a notebook – something to write on as you walk through each prayer guide. Yes, it will add a few minutes to the time it takes to do the devotion, and it will also deepen your experience and shape your walk with God for years to come. This journal or notebook will be a keepsake to remind you of God’s faithfulness during this challenging season for all of us.
Look
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
– The Apostle Paul, 2 Timothy 3:16
Listen
Although the Old Testament Hebrew prophet Daniel could not have read the Apostle Paul’s letter to Timothy, he certainly knew the truth of it as found in the sacred texts he studied with the prophets’ (like Moses’) God-inspired words. Daniel knew his people—his nation—had stopped following scripture; they’d stopped looking to scripture for reproofs and for correction; they’d stopped looking to the sacred texts for training in God’s holy righteousness. So Daniel prays, asking for forgiveness and rescue:
Daniel 9:8-11; 17-19; 22-23
8 To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. 9 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him 10 and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. 11 All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him…
17 Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. 18 O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. 19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”
Immediately while he was speaking and praying, Gabriel arrives from the Lord to give Daniel “insight and understanding” and the knowledge that he is “greatly loved.”
Reflect
1. Having read the Word, sit silently for a minute and give God’s Word a moment to settle within you.
2. Re-read the verses slowly and write down some thoughts that resonate with you.
3. Ask the Spirit to help you see some areas of personal sin, some desires, motives or longings that run contrary to scripture and that you may need to ask for God’s forgiveness. (for example: you might write down, “Daniel asked for God’s mercy for Israel who’d turned aside from His voice. What ways have I turned away from Him? What ways has my national or cultural values diverged from His ways?”) The Spirit can help you understand what God is saying to you in these moments.
4. Ask the Holy Spirit to convict you and shed light if there are areas where you have followed cultural cues, rather than biblical teaching.
5. What are some elements in this “prayer for forgiveness and rescue” from Daniel that might guide you today as you seek God’s help?
Pray
We need the Lord’s face to shine upon us in these days of COVID-19 and an unprecedented national shutdown and slow reopening. Daniel was transparent and acknowledged the righteousness of God’s ways and the wrongness of our ways. He asks not because of his own righteousness, but God’s mercy. God does not hold grudges, but sent His son so that we have a path to forgiveness through prayerful repentance. Scripture shows us that asking for forgiveness and acknowledging our dependence on our heavenly Father strengthens our connection and opens the channels to hear His voice. Jesus said in Matthew 11:29 to come to Him with our burdens and He will give us rest. What burdens do you carry and what burdens do we carry as a nation and culture that we need to lay down and repent through prayer.
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