When Was Your Last All-nighter?

“But unto thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.” (Ps 88:13 AV)

Although the context of the psalmist’s declaration is the desire to be right before the LORD, we can apply this in almost every situation wherein we pray for something close to our hearts.  The word ‘prevent’ doesn’t mean the same when the KJB was translated as it does today.  The word means to go beforehand.  It means to meet someone on their way by being there first.  In other words, the Psalmist is saying he will pray all night if he has to, and in the morning, he will be praying before the morning breaks and God meets with him.  In other words, the writer is so moved by what he needs from God that he is willing to spend the night in sleepless prayer to be sure that God heard him.  That is commitment, dear saints.  One has to wonder how many times we have passed the night in prayer.  How often do we go the night without sleep because there was something so heavy on our hearts that God had to hear of it non-stop?  This is what our writer did.

The times I have spent the night in anything but sleep could probably be counted on two hands.  At least the times I stayed up all night on purpose.  The occasional emergency room visit or illness doesn’t count.  I mean the times that I spent all night doing something extremely important.  There were a few times when going to bed for only a few hours didn’t seem profitable.  Like those opening days of deer or turkey season.  Staying up late the night before only to realize you had to get back up in three hours kind of lent itself to having one more cup of coffee and staying up.  There were the occasional times when I worked until four in the morning and knew I had to get back up in two hours.  Sleep seemed kind of silly.  But I cannot remember too many times I spent the night in prayer.  There were a few.  But not many.  Those times were usually spontaneous.  There was something so troubling on my mind that I couldn’t sleep.  The thoughts of the events that disturbed me robbed me of sleep and I spent the night in constant conversation with God.  It was in those times when the LORD seemed extra close.

Which brings me to the point of all this.  The writer spent the night in prayer because he was bothered by what he saw.  He allowed the circumstances of his own choices to bother him enough to assault the throne of God rather than slumber.  The writer was emotionally and spiritually moved.  Deeply moved.  He could not sleep if he tried.  His conscience wouldn’t allow it.  We do not spend the needed time in prayer because we simply do not care enough about that which concerns us.  Lost souls are so common, it doesn’t seem to bother us anymore that one day, they will be tormented for all of eternity.  Our family’s spiritual condition doesn’t seem to concern us.  We do not spend hours in prayer, mentioning each name and the deep needs they have.  The decline of our churches illicit criticism of the pastor, but does it stir us to non-stop prayer?  Do the moral condition, spiritual apathy, and profitless lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ move us to do the one thing we can do to the fullest of our ability – pray?  I think not.  We don’t pray because we don’t care.  We don’t care because we only care about what matters to us, individually.  We don’t care how our lives reflect on God.  We don’t care about the suffering of others.  The only way we will be fully committed to prayer is if we allow the Holy Spirit of God to move our hearts to feel again.  If we feel again, maybe we will pray again.