I've been thinking about Daniel lately. Not the young man who refused the king's food, but the old man — probably in his eighties like me — who still prayed three times a day with his windows open toward Jerusalem.
The king signed a decree. Thirty days without prayer to anyone but the king himself. Daniel knew about it. Everyone knew about it. And Daniel went home, opened his windows, and knelt down just as he had always done.
**"Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he kneeled on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days."** I love that phrase — "as was his custom." Prayer wasn't Daniel's emergency plan. It was his daily bread.
Here's what strikes me: Daniel didn't hide. He didn't close his windows. He didn't wait for a better time or a safer decree. He simply continued what he had always done.
I wonder how many of us stop praying when circumstances turn against us. When the medical report is bad. When the job ends. When the relationship crumbles. We think God has changed His address, that somehow our prayers can't reach Him through the storm.
But God doesn't need our circumstances to cooperate. He's not waiting for the decree to change before He can work. Daniel trusted that the God who had been faithful for eighty years would be faithful in the lion's den too.
The lions' mouths were shut that night. But I think the real miracle happened earlier — when an old man's knees hit the floor, windows wide open, heart still soft toward heaven. That's the kind of faith that outlasts empires.
Maybe you're facing your own decree today. Something that feels unchangeable, immovable, threatening. The medical condition that won't respond to treatment. The financial pressure that won't ease. The relationship that won't heal.
Can I encourage you? Keep your windows open. Keep your knees bent. Keep your heart turned toward heaven. Not because circumstances will always change — sometimes they don't. But because the God who meets us in prayer never changes.
Daniel didn't know he'd survive the lions. He just knew he couldn't survive without prayer.
What window have you closed lately? What conversation with God have you postponed until things get better? Today might be the day to open it again, kneel down, and simply continue what has always been your custom.
God is listening. He always has been.
Daniel 6:10, NKJV