Ikon Community

Ever have something so important to do that you worked straight through lunch? That happens to me all the time. Actually, most of the people I know skip at least one meal a day because they’re so focused on something. In some ways that’s the climate of our culture.

Ever skip eating all day because you’re so busy? That happens less often, but still, my guess is you know what it’s like to go a whole day without really eating because something is so important – or distressing – that you just didn’t think about anything else.

What about all night?

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.

That’s from Luke 6:12, and what we see here is Jesus pulling an “all-nighter.” You probably done that before too. Maybe it was in high school or college and you had an important test the next morning or a twenty page paper due. When something is really critical to us we’re willing to put off all kinds of normally important things – like food and sleep – so we can focus on it.

This is the spirit of fasting and prayer. Not some Herculean religious effort, but zeal so fervent that you skip eating in order to finish something important – you stay up all night to finish what’s really important.

Exercise
You can’t really fake a prayer “all nighter,” so I won’t ask you to stay up all night in prayer like Jesus does here. But stop and consider what things in your life are serious enough to require intensive prayer. Make a list. Now, pick something that really needs your prayer attention and plan to spend an unusually long amount of time praying about. Maybe for you that’s 30 minutes, or maybe it is all night. If it helps, ask someone to join you. Now the only question left is, do you really believe prayer can be the kind of work that “get’s the job done?”