Have you ever had one of those days when you are so busy you hardly have time to eat or even sit down and relax for a minute? Most of us have. Our schedule is packed from the minute we roll out of bed to when we finally can get back into bed late at night. Maybe we even have a long stretch of weeks, maybe even months or years when we were extremely busy. Perhaps when we might be both working a job and going to school. When we’re that busy, sometimes important things get taken out of one’s schedule. Unfortunately with some Christians, it frequently is time spent with the Lord, whether in church, or personal prayer and Bible time. Jesus was an extremely busy Man, but as we read in our Scripture today, we see that He made a point of taking the time to spend with God in prayer. Let’s look at our Scripture passage from the Gospel of Mark.
Jesus was thirty years old when He began His public ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing (Luke 3:23), and that ministry lasted only about three years before He was crucified. Being that He is the Son of God, He knew how little time He had, and wasn’t about to waste any of it just idling around. When Jesus would preach and teach, the crowds would get so large that He could barely move around. This especially happened when people came to be healed. Jesus would get so swamped by the crowds, so much that He sometimes couldn’t even eat. There were times when His brothers and family began to think He was a bit crazy because of how busy He was, and tried to take Him home (Mark 3:20-21). Yet as busy as He got, Jesus did not allow that to cut into His time spent in communion with the Father.
As our Scripture begins, Jesus had spent the good part of the day teaching in the synagogue, and in addition to teaching, He had cast some demons out of a man. After a busy time there, Jesus went to the home of Peter and Andrew. When He got there, the Lord was told that Peter’s mother-in-law was quite sick, including having a high fever. He touched her and brought her healing. Afterwards she made the Lord a meal (vs. 29-31).
Word got out that Jesus was at Peter’s house and that He had healed his mother-in-law, so that evening multitudes of people descended around the house, bringing Jesus the sick and demon-possessed for Him to heal (vs. 32-34). After a long day at the synagogue preaching and teaching, He wasn’t given the privilege of relaxing during the evening, just to sit and leisurely talk with His disciples. Instead, the whole city, as mentioned in verse 33, was there demanding Jesus’ attention and healing. As we read through all four Gospels, we see that this wasn’t a rare or unique occurrence, but something that happened on a regular basis. It was probably late at night when the people dispersed, and Jesus had the opportunity to say goodnight and go to bed.
As tired as He probably was, one would think that Jesus would stay in bed until the smells of breakfast would wake Him up. However that was never the case with the Lord. As we read further in our passage, Jesus woke a long while before daylight (vs. 35). Sunrise in Jerusalem is between 5:30 - 6:30 am, depending on the time of year. Scripture says He was up a long while before daylight, so that could easily have been around 4 am. As busy as He was each day, Jesus took the time to go off by Himself and pray.
Jesus made a point of taking time to be with His heavenly Father. He had much work to do, preaching, healing, restoring, and reaching the lost, and only three short years to do it in. However, He always made time every day for prayer, even if it meant getting up early every day, even after a hectic night, to do that. Jesus would end His day in prayer, too (Matthew 14:22-23). When the crowds started to form again in the morning, the disciples needed to go looking for Jesus (vs. 36-38).
The Savior knew that He had another busy day, filled with preaching and healing, along with the spiritual attacks of Satan and from the Pharisees, and He would need to be well “prayed-up”. When we rush through our day and bypass time spent in prayer and the Bible, we will face disappointments and pressure beyond our ability to handle. We are then an easy target for the enemy of our souls. Jesus made sure to carve out some time, both at the start and at the end of His day, for prayer and communion with God. We should follow His example. When our day is hemmed with prayer, it is less likely to unravel!
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