Daniel’s Prayer
There are so many things going through my head right now. I feel like I am at a crossroads. So many options, Lord, what do I do? What do I choose? Please lead me, Lord! Daniel’s emotion came through in his prayer in chapter 9, especially in verse 19:
O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For Your sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people bear Your Name.
I want to pray with the same fervancy. It is so good to hear emotion in prayers in the OT. Daniel does not seem too different from us.
While he was praying, Gabriel came to him and said:
Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highy esteemed.
The other night Ursula was sharing how God sees the uniqueness in each one of us and loves it. I feel like Urs does a great job of this – she has encouraged me so much in being who God made me to be by loving my quirks. She loves the uniqueness in people, and does not want them any differently, like Kelly’s ear, for example. She loveshis ear the way it is and she has said so many times that he would be much less attractive to her if he had gone through with the surgery. (I think it is amazing of God how he has made Urs for Kelly to love him in that way.) I, on the other hand, always seem to be picking out the flaws in people rather than loving them for the way they are. I am constantly thinking of how they could be made better. When God raises Kelly from the dead in the last day and gives him a new body, will he have a full right ear? But then how would he still be Kelly? Will our bodies be perfect? What does perfect mean? There must be a difference between perfect in a God sense and perfect in a man sense. In a God sense, perfect means everything – it means nothing could be better, He is the highest good. He is all beautiful, there is no flaw in Him. He is all knowing, there is nothing that escapes His knowledge. He is all present; nothing can hide from Him and He rules over all. But there must be another kind of perfect. Perhaps something is perfect if it is exactly the way it was made to be. Our definition of “perfect” may be two eyes, two ears, two arms and two legs, but God’s definition of a perfect man may be that he becomes exactly how God made him to be. So will the obese people be slim in their new bodies? How far does it go? It says the blind will see and the crippled will walk, so will the (half) deaf hear? Will the midgets be full grown? I’m pretty “normal” in the world’s sense of body-types. I wonder what will change in my new body? Actually, I don’t think the scripture says new body, I think it uses the word glorified. So God will take our old, sin-wrought bodies and make them “glorified” which equals “perfect” in the created-definition of perfect (versus Creator Perfect)?
So the way this relates to what Gabriel said to Daniel: He told Daniel he was highly esteemed. Wow. I told Urs that it was hard for me to see how God delights in my uniquenesses. Sometimes I feel so ugly and tainted to God. Does he really delight in me, Heidi? I mean, yes, of course He does. He made me, Heidi. He “highly esteemed” Daniel. I am of course far from Daniel, but it just made me think that perhaps He does see me a little more highly than I see myself. Derek always says that I have higher standards than God puts on me. I’m not sure if “higher” is correct, but I think he is right in that they are different (and better).
Heidi
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