Do we need to plead?
When we really want something from someone, we may find ourselves pleading. We ask again. We explain how important it is. We might even say, “Please! I’m begging you!” Perhaps, at times, we can approach God in much the same way. We think we need to motivate him to listen, convince him to act, or somehow coax Him to care enough to answer our prayers.
In Daniel 9:3 we read that Daniel “turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.” Was Daniel begging for God’s attention? Was he trying to twist the arm of an unwilling deity by starving himself in a type of emotional blackmail? Was he putting on a persuasive spectacle of scratchy sackcloth, ashes and angst?
No. Daniel was not trying to persuade God to care. He was responding to the God who had already spoken. God had promised that Jerusalem’s desolation would last seventy years and Daniel recognised that the time was nearly up. So he prayed. His prayer was not an attempt to change God’s character. It was a response and appeal to God’s revealed character and covenant promises.
Pleading is not persuading God to become merciful. It is appealing to the mercy God has already revealed. God invites his people to bring their needs, failures, fears and hopes before him. We come, not as strangers trying to gain an audience, but as children coming to their Father.
Daniel reminds us that prayer is not casual or careless. He fasts. He mourns. He confesses. He humbles himself. His outward actions express the seriousness of what is happening in his heart. He is not performing for God. He is pouring out his heart before God. And God hears and responds.
God may not give us the answer we want, or on the timetable we expect. But we never pray to an indifferent God. So, do we need to plead? Yes - but not because God is a reluctant listener. We plead because he has invited us to ask. We persist because he is faithful. We confess because he is merciful. We seek him because he has promised to be found.
Prayer is not twisting God’s arm, but trusting God’s heart. Prayer is standing on God’s Word and holding God’s promises before Him in faith. Daniel prayed because he believed God’s Word. We do not pray to make God care. We pray because God cares.
Revd Michael Hogg