An Angel’s Perspective on why prayers can be delayed

Prayer is how people connect with God. I pray to God to Thank Him for each glorious day and for all the blessings I receive. Also, I pray to request healing for myself and for others. Above all, I pray for my family members, friends, acquaintances, co-workers and even people who are opposed to me, to come to faith in God. I believe that Faith in God is the only real Hope of humanity.

When I pray, I often become frustrated if I don’t get a quick “Yes” (or even a quick “No”) answer to my request. I perceive that God doesn’t regard my prayer with as much urgency as it deserves or that the silence, in fact, is a “No” answer. But this is merely a notion that comes from my human perspective. There is evidence in the bible that gives cause for other things, often quite substantive things, occurring in the non-material world as soon as our prayers have left our lips.

One example of this is In Chapter 10 of the book of Daniel. Daniel has an incredible and somewhat troubling vision of the future. After many days pondering and praying about it, he is visited by an Angel who has come to enlighten him as to the meaning of his vision. Before he reveals this, however, the Angel explains that from the first day, he heard the words of Daniel’s prayer and he began to come to Daniel because of those words. Furthermore, he clarifies that he had unfortunately become entrenched in a battle with the so-called “Prince of Persia” (actually a demonic angel) and that he was only able to defeat this evil spirit with the help of the archangel Michael, the most powerful angel in the Heavens.

So, in this passage, it appears that God sent an angel to deliver a message to Daniel about his vision, but he was detained by evil powers (the demonic angel) in an attempt to prevent him from communicating with Daniel. He, the good angel, was ultimately successful in defeating the demonic forces, but only after first engaging in a difficult battle with the opposing forces. In the same way, it is possible, perhaps even likely, that there are many things going on in the unseen world which are provoked by our prayers, yet utterly unknown to us. When this happens, we wait, wait, and wait some more, continuing in our struggles, hoping that God has not abandoned us. When we are in this situation, we should recall this scripture in Daniel and take heart. As well, we might be comforted by the words God used to reassure Joshua as he was preparing to lead the Israelites into The Promised Land. He said “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you”. (Joshua 1:5).