Intimate Life

As I return to prayer, we come to one of the most basic - but important - points about the subject, and no one introduces it better than Daniel:

Now when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house (now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem); and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously. - Daniel 6:10

Daniel prayed in private - and before you jump up and say "that's because the king outlawed praying to God!", look at the language here: Daniel was doing that now that the prohibition was signed but he had been doing that anyways. Daniel spent daily, private time in prayer before, during, and after the prohibition.

Why does this matter? Well, if you go and read Daniel, you'll discover a guy who was blessed beyond measure by God. He killed a bear single-handed,  attended a slumber party in a lions' den and survived to tell the tale, and in case those two weren't enough he had to win favor with one of the craziest kings told of in the Bible and prophesied much about the end of the world. From all perspectives he had a pretty active life and God has a lot to do with him. Why?

It turns out that God's not into religion. He wants relationship. Hence He walked with Adam and Eve in the garden. Hence, in Isaiah, God reaches out to Israel and says "Come now and let us reason together" (1:18). God atoned for sin through His son Jesus so that we could have relationship with Him, not so we could have religion.

And that's where private prayer begins to make sense: God wants to talk with us, He wants us to linger deep in conversation with Him. He desires to become our chief confidant, our closest friend, our strongest relationship. He know everything already but He wants to hear it from us!


Spend some time with Him; I can guarantee that if you're open to His presence then you'll never regret it.