“Now when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he enters his house (now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem); and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day giving thanks before God, as he had been doing previously.” (Daniel 6:10)

    I submit to you, that’s an incredible response to one’s own death warrant. I find here his fourth mark of godliness—his consistent walk with God.

    I think the last part of that verse is most remarkable: as he had been doing previously. Daniel did not turn to prayer in panic. He had been consistently on his knees three times a day before his God, day in, day out, year after year. By the way, remember, he was one of the top officials in the land, yet he had time with God regularly. The psalmist writes, “Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.” (Psalm 55:17, KJV)

    Isn’t that a great verse? “Evening, morning, noon, I will pray.” Daniel was no stranger to prayer. But still he didn’t flaunt the fact the he was a man of prayer. Notice his windows were already open. He didn’t suddenly bang them open so that everyone would know he was praying and be impressed with his piety.

    There was an advertisement some time ago from one of the airlines. It said, "When you’ve got it, flaunt it." That may work for an airline, but it doesn’t work for an authentic man or woman of God. When you’ve got it you don’t flaunt it. Why? Because when you flaunt it, you don’t really have it.

    Daniel just quietly walked up to the chamber in his home and again before God he poured out his fear, his concern, his future, his life. Daniel is phenomenal. Just very near unreal. We Christians have a low threshold of pain, don’t we? When things run along pretty well, we can stay fairy consistent, but a little ripple comes in the water, and we plunge! We pray at those times, but they are usually panic prayers, "Help-me-out-of-this-mess" prayers. Not Daniel! The remarkable thing about him is that he simply went back to God as before. I think if they had had an electrocardiogram, it would have read just the same as always, like those astronauts of years gone by. Just before the blastoff, scientists and medical specialists did that test on the and it was just like the morning before when they were having breakfast. "What else is new? Going around the earth, ho hum." And off they went.

    And Daniel? "Well, what else is new? What do you expect from this world?" So he heard about this news and he just went right back to God and told God about them. He had a place to meet. By the way, will you observe that he got on his knees. I want to suggest that kneeling is a good way to pray because it is uncomfortable. Our problem is that we pray in such a comfortable position that we just sort of drift off after a few sentences. Try that. Jim Elliot has said: God is still on His throne and man is still on his footstool. There’s only a knee’s distance between them.

    How is your time in prayer? What does it take you to get on your knees? A tragedy? A real emergency? This man had been doing this as a habit of his life. He had a place to meet with God and he met. He consistently, kept his burdens, at the throne. Please don’t excuse yourself because you are too busy. Not a person reading this page is busier than Daniel could have been as one of the three top men in the country. You can get busier than that. But somehow, his consistent walk with God was so important, he simply stayed before His presence. I don’t think he spent significant periods of time just punctuating his needs of the day, week in and week out.