Daniel Shows Us How to Plead with God When You’ve Blown It Badly

Approaching God

Daniel 9 gives us a surprising answer to a deeply practical question: How do you approach God when you’ve blown it badly?

Not when things are going well. Not when your conscience is clean. But when you know you have sinned, perhaps in ways that feel irreversible. When you have no case to make for yourself. When you feel like the worst saint who ever lived.

Daniel 9 is a prayer of confession and a plea for mercy. Israel is in exile because of persistent, covenant-breaking sin. Daniel knows it. He does not minimize it. He does not excuse it. He names it plainly and owns it personally. “We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled.”

And yet he prays. More than that, he pleads.

What is striking is how he does it. Daniel does not appeal to anything in himself or in Israel. He appeals to God. Specifically, he appeals to what God has done, who God is, and what God ultimately cares about.

1. Appeal to what God has done.

“O Lord, according to all your righteous acts . . . ” (Dan. 9:16).

Daniel does not bring his own righteousness to the table. He has none to offer. Instead, he points to God’s righteous acts, especially the great act of redemption in the Exodus. God delivered his people before. God acted decisively in history to save.

So Daniel prays, in effect, “Do it again.”

When we have no actions of our own to commend us, we appeal to his. We remind God and ourselves of what he has done. His past faithfulness becomes the ground of present hope. His saving acts are not isolated events. They reveal his character and signal his willingness to act again.

2. Appeal to who God is.

“We do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy” (Dan. 9:18).

Here, Daniel moves from God’s actions to God’s character. If God has acted righteously, it is because he is merciful. Mercy is not something God occasionally does. It is who he is.

This is where the logic of grace becomes most clear. When we lack character to commend ourselves, we appeal to his. When we are aware of our sin, we lean into his mercy.

Scripture is unembarrassed about this. David, after grievous sin, prays, “For your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great” (Ps. 25:11). The greatness of his sin does not disqualify him from mercy. It drives him to it.

There is no limit to the mercy of God, and no insufficiency in the work of Christ. The depth of our sin is not an obstacle to pleading with God. It is the very reason we must.

Mercy is not something God occasionally does. It is who he is.

3. Appeal to what God loves.

“O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive . . . delay not, for your own sake . . . because your city and your people are called by your name” (Dan. 9:19).

This is the deepest level of Daniel’s plea. He appeals to God’s own name. God’s ultimate concern is not us, but himself. That may sound unsettling at first, but it is actually our only hope.

When we sin, we bring dishonor on God’s name. We give the nations reason to question his goodness, his power, his faithfulness. And God is committed to vindicating his name.

This is exactly what we see in Ezekiel 36. Israel has nothing to commend them. Everything stands against them. And yet God says, “It is not for your sake . . . that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name.”

God loves his name. He is committed to displaying his holiness, his mercy, and his faithfulness in and through his people. That means our restoration ultimately serves his glory.

So Daniel prays accordingly—not just, “Do this for us,” but, “Do this for yourself.”

Conclusion

This is how you plead with God when you feel like the worst saint ever.

You do not appeal to your record, your effort, or your sincerity. You leave all of that behind. You go straight to God himself.

You appeal to what he has done. You appeal to who he is. You appeal to what he loves most.

And you do so with boldness.

Because when you have nothing left to say for yourself, you finally begin to understand what it means to rely entirely on him.

Todd Wilson is the author of Daniel: A 12-Week Study.

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