For this is what the LORD says: “When Babylon’s seventy years are complete, I will attend to you and confirm My promise to restore you to this place.

— Jeremiah 29:10

2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the sacred books, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.

3 So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

— Daniel 9:2-3

At the beginning of your petitions, an answer went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are highly precious. So consider the message and understand the vision:

–Daniel 9:23

He said to me, “Daniel, you are a man who is highly precious. Consider carefully the words that I am about to say to you. Stand up, for I have now been sent to you.” And when he had said this to me, I stood up trembling.

— Daniel 10:11

If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

— John 15:7

Thoughts on Today’s Reading

Grace, mercy and love from Christ to you.

Prayers are our intimate conversations with God. Regardless of our age or life stage, God deserves our attention, devotion, and obedience. Even in his senior years, Daniel continued a life of faithful obedience and prayer. He rested on God’s deliverance through the ages. He trusted God’s promises through His prophets regarding the freedom to come. God honored Daniel’s life and practice of faith, which was fueled by his consistent conversation with the Lord in prayer. As such, God called Daniel “highly precious.”

When Babylon was under the Medo-Persian rule of Darius the Mede around 538 BC, Daniel was over 80 years old. Daniel had lived the vast majority of his life – 67 years-under the yoke of exile and away from his beloved homeland. He took God at His Word. Daniel knew, understood, and believed Scripture. He clung to the hope of Jeremiah’s prophetic words and could see the light of his people’s freedom on the near horizon. But Daniel’s faith and assurance in God’s promises did not make him complacent. Daniel bowed in a posture of humble, repentant, and trusting prayer before his sovereign God.