Daniel's Prayer (1865) by Sir Edward Poynter (1836-1919)
Prayer is as natural to a child of God as breathing is. "While I breathe I pray," said Andrew of Crete in the eighth century. Yet we have trouble with it. We love God, but poorly. We see God, but through a glass darkly. So we are more focused on the pleasures and terrors of this world, a world that we see, or so we think, far more distinctly.
But we are not the first to face this problem. Christ's original disciples implored him, "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1).
Most prayer is a self-centered worry list--letting God in on all our troubles, and whatever of other people's troubles comes to mind. One helpful discipline, however, is to follow the acronym ACTS: adoration of God, confession of sin, thanksgiving for blessings, and supplication.
How is this helpful? Beginning with adoration fills the believer's sights with God. So we sing, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And the cares of life will turn strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace." Before taking up your requests, consider the one to whom you are bringing them.
As you confess your sins, you remind yourself that the terrible crisis of your sin against God that was surely to separate you from your eternal rest has been resolved in Christ by the amazing mercy of God. Before coming to your needs, remember your greatest need, and view your other needs in light of Christ's provision for it.
Following up with thanksgiving brings to mind the record of God's provision before getting to requests for further provision. Needs press in on us and fill our field of vision. You can hold up your little finger and blot out the sun! You may have hurt your little finger, but God has provided the sun and rain and many other tokens of his care. It is good to keep that in mind before petitioning him for help concerning your finger.
Only after these three comes supplication.
Apply these guidelines to the prayer that the Lord Jesus gave his disciples as a model.
Our Father who are in heaven. Hallowed by thy name. -- Adoration.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. -- Supplication.
Give is this day our daily bread. -- Supplication.
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. -- Confession.
And lead us not into temptation. -- Supplication.
But deliver us from evil. -- Supplication.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. Amen. -- Adoration.
It is interesting that there is no thanksgiving in the prayer. Surely Jesus intends that we thank God for our blessings. But Jesus did not give the prayer as a fixed liturgy (though we are free to use it in that way). Any godly believer knows that one thanks God for his mercies. As the Apostle Paul told the Philippians, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God" (Php 4:6). Thank offerings were part of Israel's worship (Lev. 7:11-15; 2 Chron. 29:30-32).
As helpful as the ACTS outline is in structuring our prayers, Job (23:3) prompts us to pray with a slightly different understanding. When he approaches the throne of grace, this man who is so much in need does not just make his requests known. He marshals arguments. "Oh that I knew where I might find him, that I might come to his seat! I would present my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments."
Job is not coming to Santa Claus with requests, otherwise he might just spout forth his list of requests. He is not supplicating pagan gods, such that he brings gifts to bribe them and pervert whatever sense of right they might have.
He is approaching Yahweh, the Lord. As he is fully aware, this is the God who made the world through the Logos, and who made us in his image. Thus, God said through Isaiah, "Come now, and let us reason together" (1:18). He addressed us through his prophets and left us a written testimony. He has made us promises with which he binds himself. That is no limitation on his sovereignty because his promises are fully consistent with his divine character, and he is constant in his character so that he delights to keep his promises. In promising, he utters conditional statements concerning which we can reason in view of our circumstances.
And so knowing who his God is, in the confidence of God's covenant love, righteous Job in his need approaches his God with arguments, and it pleases the Lord that Job does this. The Lord's character, self-revelation, promises, and dealings invite it!
We see this in the prayers of the saints that are recorded in the Bible, for example Daniel's prayer after learning from study that his people would be a total of seventy years in captivity (Dan. 9). He begins with adoration, but he is also setting up his argument.
He "keeps his covenant and mercy" (v.4). From verses 5-8, Daniel confesses his sin and the sins of his people in which he participates, and then returns to God's character: "To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him" (v.9). He alternates between adoration and confession until verse 16 when he begins his argument.
O Lord, according to all Your righteousness, I pray, let Your anger and Your fury be turned away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all those around us. Now therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications, and for the Lord’s sake cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name.
Daniel asks the Lord to spare Jerusalem and his people their present afflictions and desolations. Why should God do this? Because of his righteous character. It is God's own sanctuary, and so Daniel calls on the Lord to defend it for his own sake. The city is his own city. It is called by his name. Finally, he appeals to the Lord's mercy to which he has made reference twice before in this prayer. Specifically, he mentions forgiveness, an aspect of love that "belongs" to the Lord (v.9). "For your own sake," pleads the holy exile. Your city. Your people. Your name.
Notice that in the Lord's Prayer the final word of adoration begins with the little word "for," as in "because." We ask God to give us daily bread and the forgiveness of our sins so that his kingdom would cover that much more of the world, so that he would show his divine power by it, and so that he would be glorified.
When the wise Christian prays, the character and promises of God dominate his perspective. The record of God's provision is foremost in his mind. "You have done it, Lord," he says. "You have always done it; so, do it again!" Like Job, and also like Paul, he argues from the greater to the lesser, as when Paul says, "He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things" (Romans 8:32). Having met our greatest need by paying the greatest price, he will surely meet all lesser ones.
Praying in this saintly style builds our confidence to go to prayer and secures our peace coming out of prayer.
Charles Spurgeon, the great London preacher of the Victorian age, has a much better account of this passage in his sermon, "Effective Prayer."
