“The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers.” (I Peter 4:7 GNT)
The alarm went off at six, and I inwardly groaned. Phil didn’t move; he was sound asleep. I desperately wanted to go back to sleep. Turning off the alarm, I debated what to do. There were other Friday mornings we didn’t get up to pray. We could put it off, couldn’t we? I mentally clicked through the next 48 hours, realizing the busy weekend held no prospects for another quiet hour for prayer.
The Lord chastens those He loves. As I lay there trying to justify going back to sleep, a scripture came to mind: “The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers.” (I Peter 4:7 GNT) This was not what I wanted to think about at the moment: disciplining myself in order to pray. I held out a few more minutes, wrestling with my desire to take the easy way out. But with decades of God’s chastening under my belt, I knew if I ignored Him, I’d regret it.
“Phil, the alarm went off,” I said, nudging my husband. He rolled over, groggy. It was dark as night, an hour and a half until sunrise. I sat up, turned on the light, and proceeded to get dressed. Soon we’d be at the table for breakfast and then prayer.
I thought of this scripture because, when I’d read it a few days earlier, it struck me as odd. Wouldn’t you be self-disciplined for the sake of holiness? To live a pure life? To honor Christ? I associate self-discipline with things like not gossiping or drinking too much. I’m not saying prayer isn’t important, only that the idea of being self-disciplined for prayer surprised me. It seemed Peter was saying, “Look, the world is about to end and Christ is coming back. Get serious. Discipline yourself so you can pray.” I wondered if Peter had ever lacked self-discipline for prayer. Was there an occasion when he wasn’t “serious”?
It wasn’t long before I remembered the night of our Lord’s betrayal in the gospel of Mark. Tradition says this is Peter’s story, as told to his friend John Mark. If so, he freely exposes his failure. In the Garden of Gethsemane, when the end of all things was near, the Lord asked Peter and two other friends to stay awake and pray. Leaving them, He fell on the ground and prayed in great agony. When He came back, the men were sleeping. He singled out Peter and chastised him: “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour?” Two more times this happens, and the men seem bewildered by their lack of discipline. Mark writes, “they did not know what to answer him.” Did they eat too much at dinner? Were they sleepy from too much wine? Soon Judas arrives with a crowd carrying swords and clubs. The end came, and Peter wasn’t ready.
Tying that incident to Peter’s instruction helped me to feel the weight of his personal experience. He knew what it was like to fall asleep instead of praying. He’d lived through a crisis that felt like the end of everything—everything he cherished and believed. The Messiah was killed in broad daylight the next day, and he was powerless to stop it. His hopes for the future crashed. He had nothing.
Nothing, that is, until the resurrection three days later. Then he had everything, including an unassailable reason to start disciplining himself for prayer. Although he didn’t know the date or time of Christ’s return, he knew it was coming. He describes it to his friends: “the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!” (2 Peter 3) He’d be ready this time.
Last Friday morning, as Phil and I bowed our heads to pray, God pressed me to pray for a couple who’ve struggled to love each other well. Their marriage has been fraught with challenges. We don’t see them often, but we love them deeply. Later in the morning, Phil got a call from the husband. He wanted to know if Phil could meet him for lunch; he needed someone to talk to. Near the end of their time, Phil mentioned we had prayed for them that morning.
“That must be why I called you, then,” the man said.
When Phil shared this with me, I just smiled. God was letting us see his work. He had given us a part to play. John Wesley, that great evangelist whose work gave rise to the Methodist church, once wrote, “God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.” What a privilege. Wesley also wrote, “Prayer is where the action is.” As I made the connection between our prayers and their outcome, I understood what Wesley meant. The day’s action was launched by prayer.
And to see that action, I had to get out of bed.