Enjoying God

By T.M. Moore

Daniel’s prayer in chapter 9 of his prophecy is one of most poignant and moving passages in the Old Testament. It brings me to tears every time I read it. In it he confesses the sins of Israel and calls on God to forgive and return His favor to His people, and to carry out His promises on their behalf.

Now we recall that Daniel was a godly man, a man the likes of whom rarely appears anywhere in Scripture. He is the “Daniel” we “dare” to be when courage, purity, and forthrightness are required. Yet in this prayer we see what might seem to be a very different Daniel – a man weeping for sin, desperate for forgiveness, terrified of judgment, and urgently pleading with God for mercy.

In fact, it is just these qualities, rarely glimpsed in the private, devotional life of Daniel, that made this Old Testament prophet the great and fearless servant of God he was. Daniel was fully engaged with God in all aspects of his being, life, and times. And when Daniel read the Word of God – as we see him doing in chapter 9 – he was fully engaged with Scripture as well.

In his book, On Christian Doctrine, Augustine taught that we will love to read and meditate in Scripture when we have learned to enjoy God Whom we meet there. The greater our enjoyment of God, as He reveals Himself in glory in His Word, the more we will enjoy reading His Word and love to immerse ourselves in it.

But this will only happen when we are “all-in” toward God – when we have learned to love Him and to come before Him with every aspect of our being. Augustine explains, “This is the divinely instituted rule of love: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’ He said, and, ‘Thou shalt love God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.’ Thus all your thoughts and all your understanding should be turned toward Him from whom you receive these powers.”

Enjoying God is not merely an intellectual exercise, as Augustine explains elsewhere. If we approach the Word of God merely with our minds, that is, to learn some new truth, enlarge our understanding, or gain some new insight, while we may fulfill that intellectual quest, it’s doubtless this will lead us to the enjoyment of God which Scripture provides. Augustine continues, “[God] did not leave any part of life which should be free and find itself room to desire the enjoyment of something else.” We love God when we love Him all-in, when we are fully engaged in our hearts, minds, priorities, words, and deeds with the great adventure of reading Scripture to meet God in His glory. If we do not bring our entire selves to meet with God in Scripture, then we are distracted from Him in at least some part of our being. And, frankly, if He does not command our entire being, He will not be likely to engage us with His.

But let us not be mistaken about what we mean by “enjoying God.” In his prayer in Daniel 9, Daniel reveals a wide range of powerful emotions. He is deeply sorrowful, to the point of fasting in prayer and ashes (v. 3). He is lifted up in worship, envisioning God in all His greatness, power, and severity (vv. 4-9). He confesses his sin and that of the nation (v. 5).  Daniel is overcome with humiliation and shame (vv. 6, 7), clings to hope in God alone (vv. 9, 13, 2tc.), surveys the sad state of the people of God in his day (v. 11), remembers both God’s faithfulness and Israel’s disobedience (vv. 11-13), dreads the judgment of God (v. 14), and urgently pleads for mercy, forgiveness, and the favor of the Lord (vv. 17-19).

Here is a man who was thoroughly enjoying the presence of God. Enjoyment, you see, should not be equated with “fun.” Fun is cheap, easy, and fleeting; enjoyment is hard work, and only comes when joy in the Lord is deeply embedded in every sector of the soul, and persistent, regardless of circumstances. Daniel enjoyed his prayer to the Lord because he was enjoying the presence of God, the sense of His looming, weighty glory and unchangeable righteousness, His unfailing promises and deeply penetrating Word. Daniel wept and pled with God as only one can who truly knows how to enjoy His presence and lean on His love.

And how was this possible? How was Daniel so able to enjoy God like this – “all-in” – when most of us rarely if ever know an encounter with God that even remotely compares with what we see here?

Because Daniel was “all-in” – heart, soul, mind, and strength – with his reading of Jeremiah 25:11, 12. He brought himself, entirely engaged, to reading and meditating on that text, and, after 70 years of being a captive in Babylon, Jeremiah’s words uncorked Daniel’s memory, ignited his affections, summoned his values and priorities, and commanded the next steps he sought from the Lord for that day’s service. When we come to the Scripture “all-in” like this, God will meet us “all-in”, and we will know the joy of His presence, and love the time we have with Him in His Word.

for more by T.M. Moore, please visit ColsonCenter.org