I prayed all night once. Well, sort of…I might have nodded off a couple of times, but I fell asleep and woke-up praying…that was interesting. This happened about 20 years ago when I was a counselor at Chrysalis, a weekend-long retreat for youth. I was with a small group of other counselors in our worship area who were taking on this prayer challenge. When you decide to pray for hours, rather than just the minutes and seconds you are used to praying, your mind goes on quite a journey. I think of the comedian Louis CK who said that once you sleep past about 10 hours, your mind says, “Ok, you want to see some stuff? I’ve got some really crazy stuff in here. Remember this? AHHH!” It is similar with a very long prayer experience. First, you say every “stock” prayer you have ever heard. “Now I lay me down to sleep.” “God is great, God is good.” “Oh, the Lord’s been good to me, and so I thank the Lord.” And the list goes on…if you have ever prayed it, it comes out again. Then you look at your watch and realize that you have been praying for about seven minutes! Next, you read some Psalms and turn those into your prayer. And you think, “Oh, I’ll pray what Jesus said to pray!” so you read Matthew 6:9-13 (the Lord’s Prayer). You read it out loud, silently, again pausing on every word, backward, and out loud again. What else did Jesus say? You look at some more “red letters” and famous Jesus passages (Beatitudes, greatest commandment, last supper, just to name a few) and repeat the same process with each (out loud, silently, etc.) Wow, this is not so bad, until you look at your watch…26 minutes gone. How will you ever make it through the night?
Then something beautiful happens…you stop talking, but you keep praying. You stop thinking of what to say, but you keep praying. You stop reading, but you keep praying. You stop trying to pray, and you just…as weird as it sounds…pray. Prayer becomes less about you, and more about God. You can feel and hear your breathing. You can feel and hear the silence.
Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:11-13)
What are you doing here, Jason? Out of the silence come images of friends you haven’t thought about in years; images of the people that mean the most to you; images of forgotten classmates; images of neighbors, church members, and random acquaintances. It’s like God sends you the next focus for your prayer. And you just see them with thoughts of thanks, praise, joy. Some people bring words to your mind to say. Some people bring silence and only last for a few seconds. Some people just bring tears.
Then you move from people to your calling or purpose, and you finally get real with God about why you are here. What am I doing here, God? That leads to wonderful daydreams, soul searching, and more…silence. But this silence is warm. Even if no answers are revealed, the questions bring a smile to your face, and somehow you feel warmth and comfort…and maybe a gentle whisper that says, “Wait.”
Suddenly, you realize that while you were waiting…you dozed off for about an hour. Now, it’s the middle of the night. You wearily crack open your Bible while humming “Oh, the Lord’s been good to me.” And the process repeats until dawn.
What does this have to do with deadlifts? Deadlifts can make you really strong. But you have to explore fully with them. Prayer can answer many, if not, all of life’s tough questions and give you direction. But it has to go deeper than a memorized prayer and last longer than a few minutes. I’m not saying you have to pray all night…but you would never forget it. Check out the new Training Department article "Deadlift for Super-Human Strength" for more on this analogy.
Live with Strength!
Jason
