A while back, I spent an overnight at a writer’s conference. The first morning there, I toyed with the idea of sleeping in, because I felt I deserved it. I’d been running on low energy, and ricocheting between deadlines for almost a week.
But a predator cruises the fuzzy border between early and late morning—the Tyrannosaurus Urgent.
You know the creature. It’s the anxiety about the things you need to get done for the day. From the time you open your eyes, it only gains strength. It’s the nervous itch to occupy yourself with responsibilities as soon as possible.
And there was plenty in front of me.
In my case, I had to pack for my return home without forgetting anything—a real feat for a guy who always manages to leave something behind. Then I’d have to strip my bed linens, and get across campus to breakfast at the cafeteria, before they ran out of sausage. The main session would be next on the agenda, and I needed to make sure I didn’t get one of those dreaded seats in the middle. Afterwards, I’d have to choose my breakout event carefully. A guy could find himself stuck in a Romance writing session if he wasn’t careful. That afternoon I would be seeing a literary agent, who would gush over my writing, then tell me I couldn’t get anywhere without a bigger social media following. At the end, I’d need to gather the books I hadn’t sold at the conference, and then travel home on unfamiliar Indiana roads, the kind that cut through endless cornfields.
Anyway, as I lay there, each sweep of the minute hand brought it all closer.
The higher the sun rises, the more evil increases—busyness, distraction, disappointment, anger, confusion, urgency, and demand. Jesus said, “Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:34), and I felt the trouble coming on.
The same restless unease draws millions of Christians into its suction trail every single day. Sadly, we accept it without question. In the middle of the maelstrom, we find ourselves flailing away at problems with a few emergency kit prayers, but still overwhelmed.
Meanwhile the sun rises and sets this way, until life is over. Like Jacob, we might then confess, “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life” (Gen. 47:9). Unlike him, we could end up without much realization of God’s presence during all that time.
Obviously, we can’t dismiss the busyness of the day, but we can certainly conduct a preemptive strike against it.
Look at the example of Jesus. Mark tells us “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (1:35). Jesus was aware of that day’s potential for trouble, and prepared to face the temptations, the pain, and fatigue of it.
He had defeated the devil in the wilderness, but Scripture tells us the evil one had gone away only “until an opportune time” (Lk. 4:13). For when men awoke and began interacting with him, unfair criticism came, the pressures of ministry, and the temptation to quit with every downturn. And so He preemptively spent time with the Father before the evil of the day could swell into beastly proportions, and exert its varied distresses.
Any time of day can be prayer time—”Pray unceasingly,” Paul tells us—but morning prayer seems especially suited to preparation, while night prayer is related to reflection. In fact, Luke 6:12 tells us that on occasion, Jesus also prayed all night. That is, He waited for the day to melt away, for the problems and pressures to go to bed, and then He pulled the graveyard shift.
While the early and late hours are strategic for prayer, daylight hours don’t seem much of a friend to either one, because that’s when the gladiatorial arena is already in full swing. We need time with God. Take away all spiritual preparation, or reflection from the Christian life, and there’s nothing much left except befuddlement.
I went ahead that morning at the writer’s conference, and rolled out of bed, while evil was still asleep.
Dew was on the grass,
I spooked some rabbits,
Heard a stream gurgling over rocks,
Began to pray,
And found God already up.
Learn more about devotional life through Word and prayer in our workbook, Presence: Praying the Scriptures to Encounter the Glory of God.
