Greatly Loved

Daniel 10:11 And he said to me, “O Daniel, man greatly loved”….

My husband and I are in the last few weeks of our study in Daniel. Wow! It has been amazing! I cannot get over, nor do I desire to get over ,so many of the amazing truths I have learned.

This morning as I was reading in Daniel 10 I was so warmed by the verse above. This was not the first time nor the last that Daniel was told he was “greatly loved”.

I wonder what it was like for Daniel at this period in his life. As far as we know his three friends we saw in chapters 1 and 3 are no longer with him. It seems as though he does not have many if any close friends in the faith. This must have been a pretty lonely time for the prophet. I think I tend to de-humanize people in the bible unless I imagine what day to day life was like for them. So, as I read this exhortation to him this morning, I wonder how much did he need to hear, that his prayers were heard and that he, Daniel, was greatly loved? I wonder if sometimes at night he could still hear his mama tell him that she loved him, or his dad say he was proud? I wonder if he would tell God, “I need to know, you hear and that you love me’, as he would curl up and go to sleep each night.

I remember a time not too much in the past that I too felt this overwhelming need to have the Father’s arms wrapped around my lonely self.  God feels the same way about His children today as He did about Daniel. We may not have the same trials that Daniel had, most likely none of do, but we can rest assured at night that He does hear, and that He does love us.