¹² “Don’t be afraid, Daniel,” he said to me, “for from the first day that you purposed to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your prayers were heard. I have come because of your prayers. (Daniel 10:12 CSB)

There are two prerequisites to prayer we may not really realize. Our scripture today emphasizes the fact that we need to “purpose to understand and to humble ourselves before God.” I think we all realize that we come before the God of the universe in a humble way. But maybe we do not clearly have a picture of what we are to “purpose to understand” initially as well.

When we purpose to understand we are coming to prayer with the realization that our prayer is doing a few things. It is opening a pathway to God’s ear through a close communion with Him and turning away from the world. We are putting ourselves in a place of humble acceptance that God knows better than we do. That we are going to be accepting of prayers answered in different ways than we might desire. We are seeking to understand God’s will for what we are praying over and not just our selfish desires.

Now, does God not listen to us at all before we purpose to understand and humble ourselves. Yes, He is a loving God who hears every prayer. But too there are expectations that we should be aware of that will make our prayer time more fruitful.