Anne Graham Lotz book, The Daniel Prayer is an excellent study on prayer, one that has truly blessed my life. I was involved in the online study and also used The Daniel Prayer Study Guide. The message of this book and the study is just so simple. Pray. Just Pray. Get with it. The book is a very helpful challenge. I encourage you to read it with or without the study. It will challenge you as a believer, because of who you are in Christ, to lift your voice in prayer to our Almighty God who hears us.

This is a wonderful book! I encourage all who believe in Jesus Christ to get this book, read it and apply it to their lives. It is time for America to repent, turn back to Almighty God and Love the Lord, Your God with All your Heart, Mind & Soul!

Anne Graham Lotz has written the best book I have read on prayer. Very timely and soul searching, especially the list on sin (I have more that I knew about). I need to pray for our loved ones, our church, those in authority over us, and our nation. Wouldn't it be wonderful if every Christian could read this and apply it daily. God is the answer!!

It must have seemed as if his life was over.

At the age of fifteen, swept up in the aftermath of his countrys demise, in a series of cruel blows, he was enslaved, deported eight hundred miles never to see his homeland again, stripped of his identity, and given a strange and foreign name. Severed from his past and with every reason to dwell in bitterness against God and man, the Old Testament prophet Daniel became a pillar of faithfulness, a man of great influence in his land of captivity, and an instrument of God in the restoration of Israel.

In The Daniel Prayer, Anne Graham Lotz examines the prayer life of the prophet who came to God desperate and saw heaven moved and nations changed. His model prayer, found in Daniel 9:1-23 was far removed from the socially conditioned small-talk that often passes for prayer, penetrating heaven with what Eugene Peterson would call reversed thunder, by praying Gods own promises back to Him.

Based on her own life-long commitment to fervent prayer, Anne reassures her readers that our own personal Daniel prayers do not have to be twenty-three verses long; they dont have to be eloquent, or even memorable. She stresses the importance of privacy in our prayer life, yielding the freedom to pray fervently, with sincerity, and in complete humility. Her mother, Ruth Bell Graham, emphasized the importance of praying on the hoof, which is reassuring for me in these mini-van years.

I especially appreciated Annes unique way of expressing herself as she emphasized the importance of worship in all of our prayers. Make the time to center down on who God is, she exhorts. Centering down on Gods faithfulness, His righteousness, His goodness, and His power will put to rest any slight suspicion that God may be holding out us or that He might want anything other than whats best for His children.

The essence of Daniels prayer was a plea for God to be glorified once again through His own people. Daniel was praying from a promise that he had read in the Scriptures that in seventy years God would make good on His promises to restore His people both spiritually and geographically.

Picture Daniel reading the promise, and then re-reading it.

Picture the firmness of resolve as it flooded his face and his heart that no matter whether anyone else in the world was praying for this deliverance that God had promised HE WOULD!

On his face before God, confessing his own sin and the sin of the nation, Daniel pleaded with God for restoration and renewed favor. In Annes words, Daniel prayed with wet eyes, bent knees, and a broken heart. The outcome was not a legalistic exercise in which Daniel worked to impress God and others with his pious behavior, but it was a prayer totally, exclusively centered on God. It was specific, and it was centered on a promise that God had already made. Daniel didnt try to tell God how to fulfill the promise or demand to see the fruit of it, but, in his pleading, he put himself at Gods disposal to make the will of God become a reality.

The Daniel Prayer is a tutorial, based on the biblical example of Daniels faithful life. It is also a book-mentoring experience based on Anne Graham Lotzs journey of prioritizing prayer in her own personal life and ministry. With this double sowing of good seed, I have harvested a crop of wisdom that I hope to preserve and be nourished by:

Daniels faith was centered on the living God. When Anne prays, she tries to think of specific attributes of Gods character that bear on her requests. For instance, if she is praying for her children, she remembers that Heunderstands parental agony and heartbreak. When feeling hurt, she remembers that He was wounded for her and promises to bind up the brokenhearted. Before even confessing her sins, she reminds herself that God is merciful and loves sinners.

Faced with the tyranny of the urgent and a never-ending do-list, it is easy to put prayer on the back burner. Anne admits: If I waited until I had the time to draw aside and pray, I doubt I would ever pray. So I have to make the time for private prayer. To be honest, Im afraid not to make the time. I dont want to miss out on the power thats necessary to really help others. Im just going to leave that quote right there and let it sink in . . .

There is a humility that comes to God empty, knowing that He owes us nothing. If you ever have the idea that God owes you a yes, maybe its time you smeared yourself with ashes.

Confession of sin will change your heart. Anne compares it to a spiritual angiogram and has provided a list of some of the more subtle sins to initiate a season of conviction, confession, and cleansing in the lives of her readers.

The use of my time demonstrates my priorities in large letters. What is the reward for prayer? Certainly it adds nothing to my bank account, to my blog, or to the beauty or cleanliness of my home. What if the only reward for prayer is the high regard of Heaven? Is this enough?

The Daniel Prayer is a call to prayer specific prayer, prayer that perseveres, and prayer that is based in the faithful promises of God.

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Anne has awakened me to greater dimensions of prayer. She skillfully lifts Daniel's real life journey with clarity that transfers into current every day challenges.