Prayer Is a Big Deal

Jesus prayed constantly. One of his more meaningful and critical times of prayer was at the garden of Gethsemane, shortly before he was arrested, beaten and crucified. The gospel of Luke makes it plain in chapter 22: this was no ordinary time and no ordinary prayer. " 'Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.' Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him. He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood."

Jesus was pouring himself out in prayer, as he would soon pour himself out completely in sacrifice of his physical life for us. Matthew records in chapter 26 that there was a sequence to Jesus' prayer:  "If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine" transitioning to resignation:  "If this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done." 

His followers were asleep, even Peter, James and John whom he asked to pray with him (the only time he asked them this).  “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation.”  But they found physical exhaustion and the comfort in sleep to be more important. And to back up Jesus' words, they all fled when the soldiers arrested him -- their lack of prayer led to a lack of courage, while his prayer gave him the strength to carry on.

Jesus skipped meals and stayed up all night to pray, more than once. He isolated himself in order to focus on his prayers. It makes me wonder if his mother, Mary, ever had to search for him at mealtime only to discover him in prayer. We who are parents, if we had a child who was that obsessive about books, homework or video games, would be taking steps to stop that behavior. But Jesus continued that obsession all his life.

Sometimes prayer about something in our lives is important enough that it calls us to skip a meal, stay up late, forego some creature comfort or delay some gratification, in order to spend time in prayer. Please understand me carefully:  I'm not advocating doing that every day, because if we made a pattern of skipping meals and sleep, we would injure our physical health. But to follow Jesus, sometimes it's necessary to deny ourselves and imitate his example. Praying all the time about everything is also good -- but sometimes we have to shut everything else out and focus on prayer, wrestling over something with God until we get resolution. It's a sacrifice, but it's worth it, as Jesus 'our sacrifice for sin' showed us in this example.