Word for the day by Christian Education Forum

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 Prayer Transforms
Daniel 2:1-19


"He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery" (18)
Daniel and his friends were going through a crisis in Babylon and they were facing death by the decree of the king. The king had a dream and he wanted the wise men of the land to tell him about the dream and to interpret the dream. But all the wise men of the land failed to do that and king ordered to exe-cute them. So the officials and the wise men wanted to include Daniel and his friends in this group Daniel and his friends were at the verge of losing their lives but they depended on God and used their God given wisdom to transform this crisis to a blessing not only to them but also to the people who went through the same crisis. We see here the God given wisdom and tact of Daniel as he went imme-diately to Arioch, the king’s official who was appointed to execute the killing of wise men of the land, and told him not to destroy the "wise men". Daniel went in to the king and asked for time, so that he might interpret the dream for him.

Their response to this crisis was through a community prayer. Daniel went back to his friends and prayed together. And that prayer transformed the whole scenario. Their entire attitude towards this crisis was the result of this prayer. Many a time when we go through crisis we use all our solutions to it. But they went to God in prayer and experienced God’s working in their crisis. God gave them an im-mediate answer and Daniel and his friends became a great blessing to the whole nation. When we ap-proach God and seek for His help in our crisis He will transform our crisis to a blessing. They prayed together and during the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision.

Daniel was capable of responding to the crisis that they went through with the God given ‘wisdom and tact’. But he placed his abilities through this prayer and he wanted God to intervene to this crisis. We are all blessed with a number of skills and abilities but how are we using these gifts of God in our lives? We need to use these gifts and abilities by submitting them into the hands of God. Even though Daniel was blessed with many gifts "He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery". This is what we need to do when we go through crisis in life.

Daniel also used the fellowship of his friends in prayer to face this crisis. This shows the importance of community fellowship and friendships. Are we able to share our crisis with our friends and our prayer partners? A praying church and praying friends are our strength in our crisis. Daniel is a model to us who used his friendship and fellowship by praying together in his crisis. We all go through various cri-ses why don’t we go to Almighty who can transform our crisis through the channel of prayer?

Prayer: God give us the wisdom to lift our crisis to you and give us the humility to share our crisis to our community and pray together. Amen



Rev. V. M. Mathew, Youth Chaplain NY.








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