[Darris McNeely] And going through the book of Daniel recently, and I did a Beyond Today Daily on this one in Daniel 10, it says Daniel went 21 days in a fasting regimen in order to seek God's understanding and God's will and to have a spiritual insight, and the angel came to him and said that from the very first day your prayer was heard because you set yourself and you humbled yourself. But it took 21 days for the angelic messenger to get to Daniel. And in thinking about that, there's a lot of lessons, but one of them was the persistency that Daniel had. It said it's that he stayed 21 days and I thought to myself, what if he had quit after just 20 days? Would the message still have come? It says from the first day that he had set his heart the answer was going to come, but I think there is a lesson for us in what we might look at as persistency in prayer, seeking God, seeking answers to the things that are before us.

In Luke 18:1, there is a statement in a parable by Jesus where it says this, "That Christ spoke a parable to men that they should always pray and not lose heart," that he should always pray and not lose heart. And he went on to talk about a judge that was in a city who didn't fear God nor regard man, pretty hard nose type of judge it seems, but there was also a widow in the same city and she came to this judge saying, "Get justice for me, for my adversary," and the judge would not for a while. He didn't listen to the woman. He didn't render judgment and give her justice and to hear her case. And then afterward he said to himself, "Though, I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her lest by her continual coming, she wearied me." She kept coming to him and he finally relented, heard her, and evidently ruled in her case. Then the Lord said, it goes on in verse 6, "Hear what the unjust judge said, and he and shall not God a judge avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him. I tell you that He will avenge them speedily because nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" So, Christ used this to show that God will hear those who cry out to Him day and night. Daniel sought God for 21 days, and had he not set himself and kept with it, it was a likelihood that he might not have received the answer from God. Christ I think picks up on this when he tells us to be persistent and to go to God, keep going back just as this widow did with this unjust judge and seeking an answer.

How many times do we pray for a period time for an answer and then we lose heart? We give up. We think either God's not hearing, we're not worthy or there's some other problem or we just are human and we quit. Christ is telling us, stay with it. Be like that widow. Keep going back to God and asking for His help, asking for His insight, asking for Him to intervene in our life or in that of someone else. There is a principle there. Don't lose heart. Keep going to God. He will hear and He will answer.

That's BT Daily, join us next time.