#DailyDevotion If Jesus Needs To Spend Time In Prayer What Should You Be Doing?

Mark 1³⁵In the morning, long before daylight, Jesus got up and went out to a lonely place, and there He prayed. ³⁶Simon and those who were with him searched for Jesus. ³⁷When they found Him, they told Him, “Everyone’s looking for You.” ³⁸“Let us go somewhere else,” He told them, “to the small towns that are near, so that I may preach there, too. That’s why I’ve come.” ³⁹He went and preached in their synagogues everywhere in Galilee and drove out the demons.

We all have long days at work. We have those days where it just seem to go on and on and it never stopped. So how do you end those days? Jesus had one of those days in this account from Mark. After Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law there seemed to be a steady stream of people coming to him wanting, needing to be healed and needing demons exorcised from them. You would think that Jesus being God and all, he could have been like the Energizer Bunny. But the Son of God when he became man, humbled himself to be like us. In doing so, he got exhausted just like us. He needed some time away.

But Jesus when he needed time away didn’t seclude himself to 4 hours of streaming Netflix and Amazon Prime. What did Jesus do? “Jesus got up and went out to a lonely place, and there He prayed.” You see, Jesus knew the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah 40, “those who depend on the LORD get new strength. They lift up their wings like eagles; they run and don’t get tired; they walk and don’t get weary.” Now if the Son of God needs to get his respite and strength back by depending on God and praying how much do you need to do this, O Son of Adam, fallen and weak as you are?

We simply do not take enough time to get away during the day to read God’s word to ourselves and pray what the Word of God reveals to us in the Scriptures we have read. When we read the word of God we see what our weaknesses are and where we have failed and where we have needed help. We see God’s promises to us which are meant to give us strength, peace and hope. In our prayers after reading the scriptures and seeing these things we need confess our sins and our weaknesses to God our Father and put before him, into his ears, his promises for us that we have read. We then simply need to believe God’s promises to us in Jesus, “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will opened to you.”

I got news for you binge streaming shows, eating a gallon of rocky road fudge, and drinking a fifth or a six pack is not going to do for you what spending that time with God’s word and prayer will accomplish. The former is going leave you empty even if it is enjoyable for a while. The latter will lift you up, refreshen and strengthen you so you float through life like the eagles soar upon the winds. Life is not all up to you. Jesus knew that. Jesus lived that. He did that as a human being with our weaknesses and frailties. You need to depend upon God your Father like Jesus did. Through faith in what Jesus did, you can follow in his footsteps and spend sometime getting refreshed and strengthened by the Word of God and prayer.

Heavenly Father, in our weary days of struggle, remind us to pull up a chair and spend some time with you in your word and to bring to you our struggles, trials, weaknesses, and sins and be lifted up and refreshened by your grace, mercy and peace. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.