Partnership with God: Invisible and anonymous.

Do you pray for nations? Do you pray just for the nation you belong to because that nation's safety affects yours? Or do you pray for suffering people in lands ruled by dangerous dictators? This kind of praying is called intercession. I recommend the work of intercession because it is an act of partnership with God. A life lived in partnership with God is an invisible way of being great and an anonymous way of doing good.

Daniel's prayer of intercession is one of several recorded in the Bible and a good place to look for a pattern to copy.

Daniel started his prayer by including himself in the confession that he made. The people of his nation had caused a great disaster to happen to them. (This cannot be taken to mean that all disasters are caused by sin; that would be wrong.) Daniel did not try to distance himself from the sins of the time. He could have done so because he spent all his adult life serving in the royal courts of Persia far away from his homeland.

So he begins to pray for the disaster to be mitigated. He spoke to God and addressed him as Great and dreadful God, who also is faithful and merciful. Then he began. "We have sinned..." (Continued later)

Daniel chapter 9 verses 3-19