Have you ever gotten in trouble for what you failed to do? You were supposed to be doing one thing, and you did something else instead. The other thing might have even been a good thing, but you paid the price for failing to do the one thing.
Sleeping while on guard duty is a serious offense, especially in wartime, and especially when the guarding is done near the front lines. If there is a possibility that the enemy could infiltrate the place being guarded, it can mean life and death. The lives of those being guarded is held in the hands of the one guarding. One failure can mean capture and death.
The three closest disciples were given a simple task: watch. They were the ones charged with guarding. They needed to stay awake and stay alert. And it can seem like such a simple task. Unless of course you are sleepy, really sleepy. And then it is almost impossible to stay awake. Your eyes get so heavy, that even if you hold them open with your fingers, you begin to drift off to sleep.
The worst hours for me are between two and four in the morning. If I don’t stay physically active during those times, I can feel myself drifting off. That urge to sleep can be very strong. And the disciples hadn’t had practice being on guard. Normally they would have been asleep like everyone else. It was the middle of the night.
When working in Romania one of the strangest sights was seeing people awake and walking around the street in the middle of the night. We noticed it most when we were traveling to and from that part of the continent. They weren’t involved in any useful activity, at least not and obvious one. They weren’t police walking their beat. They seemed to be just ordinary people, up in the middle of the night, walking around. The contrast between their desire to stay awake and our desire to go back to sleep hit us in those moments. We had to stay awake, no matter what. We were driving. We had to arrive at our destination. But we wanted little more than sleep.
The disciples failed. Then they are given and extra task while they wait for Jesus to finish His time of prayer. They were told to add prayer to their guard duties. And if they were like most of us, we tend to pray with our eyes closed, our bodies relatively still. Not the best recipe for success. Middle of the night, dark, cool, quiet, tired, eyes closed. Sleep sounds pretty good to me!
Prayer is added because what they are being asked to accomplish seems to be beyond their capability at that moment. They need God’s help to stay awake. They have lost the battle between what the spirit wants and what the body is willing to give. Their bodies have run out of energy. They need more help than they are willing to admit.
So next time you feel like your body is not cooperating with what your spirit desires, pray. You need the LORD’s help in that moment.
The Arnold Journey 