Daniel was a man of great favor. Darius, the king, wanted him as his right hand man. Others were vying for that position, and they finally came to the conclusion that they couldn’t find any reason to bring an accusation against Daniel. If they were going to find something wrong, it had to be in his love for God. That is a nice problem to have: no one can find anything wrong with you except that you’re completely addicted to Jesus. So, in a weak moment, the king signed a decree declaring that anyone who prayed to anything other than a particular false god would be killed.

When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home, and in his upper room with his windows open towards Jerusalem he knelt down on his knees three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as was his custom since early days (Daniel 6:10).

A lot of people change their lifestyles when pressure comes. Daniel waited until the decree came, and then he went and opened his bedroom window and knelt down right by the window and said, “Oh God, this is awesome. Another ridiculous decree has been given, and I’m not going to change my relationship with you for anyone.” Right in front of his window for everyone to see, he simply knelt before the Lord three times a day. He had the discipline as a young man of keeping tender by kneeling before the Lord three times a day, giving thanks and praying.

Daniel had had a hard life. He had every right in the natural to become the bitterest man on the planet. He was taken probably at the age of fifteen from among the Jews, and he most likely had no family left. He was made a eunuch and put into the service of a king. Daniel was a man commissioned as the assistant of the most evil emperor, and he positioned himself to pray for the day when God would restore all that He had promised.

What was it that brought Daniel to his knees day after day after day all these years from a child into a very elderly man? It was the fact that he was possessed by a promise: a prophecy that had been given by Jeremiah. The prophecy said God was going to restore Israel after their time of captivity. Daniel was a prisoner of promise, and every day he would kneel before the Lord with his thanksgiving, facing Jerusalem.

Isaiah 62 says, “Take no rest for yourselves and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.”

He was being possessed by a vision for the healing of the redeemed. I would like to suggest to you that what he did from childhood all the way into adulthood is what kept him safe and secure in great difficulty. Even when his life was threatened, praying the promise had become a part of his routine and he would gladly lay his life down if necessary to see the fulfillment of the promise of what God had said.