Daniel sought what we all need in different ways; he sought revelation from God. He needed God to shed light on his path and that of his people. God granted him that revelation as soon as he asked, but he only received the revelation after he spent three weeks praying and fasting. Why the interval between the giving and the receiving? The explanation is as perplexing as the visions that Daniel received but it gives us a crucial insight. It so happened that God’s angelic messenger who was bringing the revelation was detained by some mysterious demonic entity referred as “the prince of Persia”. He fought for three weeks, the time that Daniel was fasting for, after which the archangel, Michael, came to his aid with the revelation. There are things going on here that we can hardly begin to fathom, but there is a clear relationship between Daniel’s fasting and the breakthrough of his revelation. Sometimes, for reasons that we cannot see, we must contend in prayer for the light of God’s revelation to break through to us. We have a spiritual enemy who has a lot at stake in us remaining in the dark and who will therefore fight hard to keep the light out. We are in the midst of a spiritual war, so we must be vigilant in prayer. It is through prayer that we connect with God’s power, and it is only through prayer that we will prevail. A victorious person is a praying person.
Pray that God would shine the light of his revelation in your heart.
Read Daniel 10
