Today’s passage is Luke 6:12-26. Jesus prays all night on a mountain and in the morning chose the twelve disciples. He went down the mountain and preached to a huge crowd who had come from near and far to hear him, healing all who came to him. Then he preached a little sermon of beatitudes and woes to the crowd of his followers.
How could Jesus pray all night?
Why does Jesus say “now” to the blessings and woes of hunger and weeping?
Jesus prays all night in order to choose the twelve from among the “crowd of his disciples”(17) that he later delivers a special sermon to.
I pray for God to send the right teachers to my school.
I pray to be able to discern who they are.
Sometimes I discern well and other times I don’t.
When I don’t I know it’s because I haven’t prayed long enough.
I don’t know how Jesus prayed all night because I have a problem praying for more than a few minutes! If I try to pray late in the night, I fall asleep just like the disciples did in the Garden of Gethsemane.
I’m missing whatever it is that’s necessary to pray passionately and without ceasing.
I say my intercessory prayers most days but it’s only for ten or fifteen minutes, rarely longer.
When I was bleeding from rejection and broken dreams and then jobless and alone, I prayed for hours. It was my main activity.
I didn’t need a literal mountain to pray on because I was living on my own mountain of desolation.
Now I don’t hurt so much and I live in a sustaining spiritual community and a loving marriage and work in job that I foolishly try to do with my own small power too often.
I spend much more time on my QT and in mokjang than I do in prayer.
Do I need to hurt and be hungry before I pray with fervor in the night?
Why don’t I see my need to be alone with God to pray?
I once read that a man said the busier he got, the more time he spent in prayer.
I’m the opposite. The busier I get, the less time I spend in prayer.
Application: spend just fifteen minutes in prayer before I go to bed each night.
Lord, inspire me to go to you each day in purposeful prayer. Let me seek you diligently, not half-heartedly. Let me touch you, Lord.
