I am still working my through Daniel in my meditations on intercession. My life has had a little more busyness and slight chaos to it, so I haven’t reflected very well or written much.

What I am trying to do at this point in my walk through Daniel is not lose hope.

Seriously.

Daniel 9 is a beautiful chapter on intercession. It is the position to which God is calling me. I know that call of the Spirit isn’t to me alone. It is not to “pray for America.” It is to pray for the American Church. We are lost, we are in a fog searching for “old Christendom” and throwing tantrums when we don’t find it anymore. The call from Daniel is to not keep insisting the Church do better… but to simply intercede for the Church, and as Daniel does, repent for sins we didn’t even commit, but our “tribe” did.

Daniel takes on the sins of Israel. He asks for the mercy of God, and for God to act for God’s sake, not Israel’s sake. It’s such a beautiful template of how to intercede. We also see Gabriel bringing the answer, showing that Daniel is highly esteemed. When Daniel is praying, heaven is responding. Daniel is also praying for such massive things and engaging in a way that doesn’t give up… it is creating spiritual war that causes answers to be delayed. All of it is a beautiful and powerful picture of intercession.

But then… the answer.

We all want things to get better in our lifetime. Peace will come. The birds will sing songs of joy. The sun will shine at the proper temperature. Wars will cease.

Gabriel brings the message of the horrible things still to come, and this:

“War will continue to the end…” (Dan. 9:26)

Stuff will not get better. That is not your concern, Daniel. The goal is not Utopia. It is not griping all the time about dystopia, either. The call is to be faithful and to live in hope.

This is not to say everything is bad and will stay bad. In the Kingdom of God, his rule and reign will grow as we are faithful as the people of God. We live out the fruit of the Spirit, his Kingdom continues to expand.

But… a “Christian nation”? Wars to cease? Poverty to completely end?

Gabriel’s message… John’s message in Revelation… Daniel’s message… is this: NOPE.

But that is not our call. Our call is to be aligned with the Kingdom of God and his goodness. That goodness will grow. Goodness has grown in the last 2000 years (and it is NOT due to “Christendom” or “Western Civilization”). Goodness flourishes where the people of God are bearing fruit and bearing witness of the goodness of the Kingdom of God. Their allegiance isn’t to some nationalistic cause. It is to the King of Kings.

He will come. He will end wars. Poverty will cease. But it is his goodness and power that will bring it.

As Paul says, “We walk by faith and not by sight.”

Live in HOPE. And pray for the American Church. Pray for God’s mercy. Repent of the sins of the American Church! Carry those to the Lord and do as Daniel did: “WE have sinned. WE have rebelled.”

The impossible work of intercession is that we see it on our agenda, not God’s. We pray wrongly that “America will repent” or that “world hunger will end” or that “wars will cease.” But when we can’t pray our agenda… what fun is that? That is what makes intercession “impossible.”

But instead, let us pray that simple phrase once again: “Lord, your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”