What if Daniel had an Aching Back?

What if Daniel had an aching back?  I tend to forget that the characters in the Bible were normal human beings.  They had to eat.  Sitting and rising may have been sore activities for a man who’d lived as long and seen as much as Daniel.  By the time he was cast into the lion’s den, he was quite old.  This man saw miracles.  He prayed and interpreted dreams.  But what if his back ached?  What painful human experiences did he have to face?  What things did he pray for during his customary times of devotion, but that didn’t make it into the Bible?  Do we only see him in the answer-times, and forget the decades of patient petitioning?  Did he ask the questions David asked, faced with kings so powerful they practically ruled the world, kings who displayed their might, and wonder why the King of Kings did not come in awesome terror against His enemies?  The God of Abraham can produce a hand alone, writing words on the walls of Babylon, but He chooses to use the armies of the Medes and Persians to actually smite the wicked prince?  Running an empire is hard work, and for sometime Daniel was the king’s right hand man; what was that like?  Didn’t it wear him out?  Did he get frustrated?  Did he cry with friends for their sorrows? 

To God be all glory.