Daniel 9:13-15

Actions have consequences. God corrects those He loves. Like the silversmith who removes the dross from the silver He never takes His eye off of us during the process. Our trials always produce the fruit of the Spirit in us and bring us closer to understanding the ways of  Jesus :) it is up to us  to accept his forgiveness in humble awareness that it is nothing to do with our righteousness but everything to do with His.

Let us begin with this admission; living (embracing, honoring) a world where compassion and grace are real and shared, is never easy.

However, “Compassion asks us to go where it hurts,” Henri Nouwen writes, “to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”  

And as I write that sentence, I realize (recognize) that it’s not the sharing (giving) which is most difficult, it is the receiving.

Nouwen said that all his life two voices competed inside him.  One encouraged him to succeed and achieve (now we’re back to keeping score), while the other called him simply to rest in the comfort that he was "the beloved" of God.

Only in the last decade of his life did he truly listen to that second voice. Terry Hershey “SabbathMoments” 

Daniel 9:13-15

13 “As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth. 14 Therefore the Lord has kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice. 15 And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made Yourself a name, as it is this day—we have sinned, we have done wickedly! The New King James Version

If the Israelites had read and obeyed the Law, they would have avoided Babylonian captivity. Appealing to the exodus foreshadows Daniel’s forthcoming request for restoration through forgiveness. The might of the God of Israel was well known. By the time Daniel prayed, Babylon had already been judged and God was setting the stage for the exiles to return to Jerusalem. Faithlife Study Bible

This is a prayer of repentance for Israel’s past sinfulness, but it is also a prayer of confidence because God was about to overthrow the Babylonians and allow the Jews to return to their homeland to rebuild it. The 70 years of captivity were almost up, and glorious things lay ahead. 

Daniel confessed that Israel had departed from the Word of God, had disregarded the prophets of God, and had despised the Lord Himself. Covenant documents typically contained statements concerning the penalties for covenant violation. In the Law of Moses, such sanctions are found particularly in Leviticus 26:3–45 and Deuteronomy 27 and 28. In both passages the most feared and devastating curse of all—deportation from the land of promise—is emphasized. Daniel pointed out that the curse had come to pass.

Daniel reflected on the greatest redemptive event of Israel’s history, the exodus from Egypt, and prayed that God would repeat what He had done long ago.

God Answers Fervent Prayer. Do you ever feel as if your prayers bounce off the ceiling rather than reaching God? If so, consider carefully the prayer of Daniel for the release of his people from captivity. It is a testimony to the fact that God answers prayer—in His time and according to His purposes—as the angel Gabriel announced. The NKJV Study Bible.

In every prayer we must make confession, not only of the sins we have been guilty of, but of our faith in God, and dependence upon him, our sorrow for sin, and our resolutions against it. It must be our confession, the language of our convictions. Here is Daniel’s humble, serious, devout address to God; in which he gives glory to him as a God to be feared, and as a God to be trusted. We should, in prayer, look both at God’s greatness and his goodness, his majesty and mercy. Here is a penitent confession of sin, the cause of the troubles the people for so many years groaned under. All who would find mercy must thus confess their sins. Here is a self-abasing acknowledgment of the righteousness of God; and it is evermore the way of true penitents thus to justify God. Afflictions are sent to bring men to turn from their sins, and to understand God’s truth. Here is a believing appeal to the mercy of God. It is a comfort that God has been always ready to pardon sin. It is encouraging to recollect that mercies belong to God, as it is convincing and humbling to recollect that righteousness belongs to him. There are abundant mercies in God, not only forgiveness, but forgivenesses. Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

Exodus 32:11 Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God, and said: “LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?