Daniel 12:12 Blessed is he that waiteth
If you ask anyone who is engaged to be married how many days until they are going to be wed, they can probably tell you. They probably know it exactly. Waiting is part of what faith is. When we talk about knowing the day you are going to be married, that is a dependence on, a trust in, the person to whom you are engaged, that they will follow through on their end of the bargain and there will come a day when you will be married. Almost any human interaction where there is trust involved there is waiting involved. That is certainly true when it comes to humans and the God who made us.
In Daniel 10-12 Daniel is giving prophecies from God, things that will happen in times to come. He talks about days and what shall be the end of these things. That is the question that is asked about these prophecies Daniel has been given by God. In verse 12 Daniel says something very interesting, “Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.” Now, that would be a long time if it is how long you are waiting to be married, but there are things upon which we are going to wait on God’s cosmic calendar. Daniel simply says, “Blessed is he that waiteth.”
What is that waiting? It is faith. Faith means waiting on God. If I am not waiting, I am not faithing. If I am faithing, trusting and depending, then I am probably waiting. It means waiting when you pray long. On two occasions Daniel had prayed and God gave an answer that seemed to come some time after the request was first made.
For instance, in Daniel 10 Daniel had been fasting and praying for some time, and when the messenger came, he said, “Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.” So, the messenger’s coming was a result of Daniel’s prayer. God had heard Daniel’s prayer from the very first day, but Daniel didn’t know that. He didn’t receive an answer the very first day. There was a period of waiting. Daniel prayed until he knew that he had an answer. Sometimes the answer may be no, but how will I know what the answer is if I don’t pray to begin with. So, faith means waiting on God when you pray long.
Faith means waiting on God when you face the future. Daniel 11 and 12 are a long somewhat obscure listing of things yet to come. A lot of this prophecy is now history, so we can look back in history books and see fulfilled what was in the future in Daniel’s time. In other words, Daniel’s prophecy is our history and all of our prophecy is God’s history. God lives in the here and now. He is the eternally present existent one. So, we are talking about God’s promises which equal His character, His knowledge, and His power. So, faith means waiting on God when you face the future. I don’t know the future, but I know the one who does.
Faith means waiting on God when you don’t understand. This happens frequently. In verse 8 Daniel says, “And I heard, but I understood not.” That encourages me because when I get to this part in the book of Daniel, I think, “Wow, I don’t understand half of what I am reading.” Well, Daniel didn’t understand half of what God had given him. That is because this was not just from Daniel’s fertile imagination; this was from God. He said, “I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?” I don’t have to have the answer to every question when I have a God that knows. So, faith means waiting on God when you do not understand. You don’t have to understand prophecy to know God, and knowing God is what really matters in life.
Are you at a point today where you are having to wait? You feel impatient and restless. You want something and you want it now. Let me encourage you that faith means waiting on God.