Daniel 9:4 I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. 7 To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. 8 To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. 9 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him 10 and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.
Daniel begins his prayer the way we always should: addressing the One we are talking to: God, the One who is great and awesome, faithful, righteous, merciful and forgiving. He then identifies who he is, and for that matter, who we all are: sinful, rebellious, spiritually deaf, disobedient and shameful. This sets the playing field for the rest of this discussion. It puts us in the proper position: we are needy; He has what we need; we need to ask Him. So many times we come into God's presence with a sense of entitlement, demanding that He hear, answer, and do whatever we think best. We need to be set straight.
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