Watch &
Pray!
Reading through the Bible: II Kings 1-3/Luke 24:1-35
In honor of the National Day of Prayer, I take a step back in my journey through the Bible today. I retreat from the road to Emmaus (today’s reading in Luke 24), to the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36–46; Mark 14:32–42; Luke 22:40–46). I try to imagine what Peter feels when Jesus ask him this question
…Could you not watch with me one hour? (Matthew 26:40)
Writing…
Turns out, I don’t have to imagine how Peter feels. I have a similar experience this morning.
Long before the precedent of our present President, our nation observes a National Day of Prayer. The practice begins with the first Republican President Abraham Lincoln:
President Abraham Lincoln signed Proclamation 97 on March 30, 1863, designating April 30, 1863, as a National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer. Responding to a Senate request during the Civil War, Lincoln called for Americans to confess national sins, repent, and pray for the restoration of peace and unity (Google search).
As we face a kind of Civil War of our own today, I decide to sign up with the Presidential Prayer Team, to pray for one hour at midnight. I want to heed the better angels of my nature as President Lincoln suggests.
So, I go to bed at 9:00 PM last night. I tell my phone to wake me up at midnight.
My phone fails.
It’s the phone’s fault that I cannot, that I do not, watch with Jesus for the first hour of the National Day of Prayer. My Spirit is willing, but my phone’s alarm is too weak.
Not to despair. Providentially, I take matters into my own dreamland hands. I wake up, no thanks to my phone, not at 12 but at 2:15 AM this morning. I ask my Divine alarm clock why I am awoken (KJV) at 2:15 AM after missing my one hour of prayer earlier.
The answer?
I believe I am up in the middle of the night to watch and then pray over Jemar Tisby’s movie “Jesus was a Migrant”. I am hosting a screening of the film here in Holland, MI later this month. I have just heard from Jemar’s office that it now includes Spanish language subtitles.
Because I have paid for the screening, I am able, at 2:30 AM this morning, to watch the full half hour documentary.
*You can watch the trailer here. Notice the opening words of the trailer:
270,000 Asylum seekers shut out in one day…
many of them were Christians…
so were the people who turned them away.
Watch and pray, Jesus tells Peter, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41 ESV).
My flesh (and my phone alarm) are to weak to wake me up at midnight. So, why do I arise (KJV) at 2:15 AM instead?
When I watch the movie and then pray for those Migrants impacted, am I entering into temptation. Or would ignoring the plight of 270,000 asylum seekers in one day, be the true transgression?
It’s one thing for two different Republican Presidents to declare a National Day of Prayer. It’s quite another to agree on those for whom we must pray.
In Matthew 18:19-20 Jesus tells us that if we can get two or three of us to agree in prayer, He will grant our request. However, if we can’t agree…all bets are off.
Building…
So,, what’s the solution?
Maybe it’s in the watching before praying. Perhaps we need to see before we supplicate.
Jemar Tisby undoubtedly hears about what is happening at the border. However, before he makes the movie, he takes a trip down to the border. To borrow a title from a friend’s book, Jemar Prays with his eyes wide open.
That’s what I try to do this morning.
At first, my eyes feel like they are glued shut. Do you ever have that experience? I have to press on my tear ducts to lubricate my eyes open. Finally, my lids lift, my aching body (with the help of iburprofin) rolls out of bed.
I watch. I pray. I write. You read. Jesus listens.
However, it’s only after we, on this National Day of Prayer, agree together about what we want Him to do.