A Day Of Personal Fasting And Prayer

A. G. Daniells

 

This excerpt is taken from the fifth Early Elmshaven Years volume of the six volume biography of Ellen White, p. 239-240.

On several occasions Daniells related the experience that came to him at this time. He set aside Sabbath, March 21, preceding the General Conference session as a day of special personal fasting and prayer. He felt he must know his duty. He went to one of the offices in the Pacific Press publishing house where he could spend the day in study, meditation, and prayer, longing for some omen that would give him courage to move into the session. Through the day and into the evening he remained there. As he knelt in a final prayer, the burden that he might get into true relationship with God’s great work on earth rolled upon his heart.  {5BIO 239.4}

In recounting the story just a few hours before his death, he said, “I struggled unto death, crying aloud, and I nearly reproached the Lord for not giving me some sign, some evidence of my acceptance, and His support of me in the awful battle that was before us.” During this struggle he prostrated himself on the floor, clutching, as it were, at the floorboards as he agonized with God. All night he wrestled with the Lord. Then, he reports, as the morning sun burst into the room, “As distinctly as if audibly spoken, the words burned into my mind as a message from heaven, ‘If you will stand by My servant until her sun sets in a bright sky, I will stand by you to the last hour of the conflict.’”—AGD, The Abiding Gift of Prophecy, p. 367. {5BIO 240.1}

“I couldn’t talk any more with God,” he said. “I was overcome. And although I have made mistakes, God has stood by me, and I have never repudiated that woman, nor questioned her loyalty, to my knowledge, from that night to this. Oh, that was a happy experience to me and it bound me up with the greatest character that has lived in this dispensation.”—DF 312c, “Report of a Parting Interview Between AGD and WCW, March 20, 1935,” p. 5. {5BIO 240.2}