Hours For Moments.

Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of Him to Bethsaida, while He dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, He went up on a mountainside to pray.

When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and He was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them.

About the fourth watch of the night He went out to them... Then He climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed. (Mark 6:45-48a; 6:51)

During Sunday's sermon on the Jabez prayer (First Chronicles 4:10), Pastor Martha shared a profound insight based on the prayer life of Jesus. She said, and I paraphrase here, that there is a correlation between prayer and action. Specifically, the greater the amount of time spent in communion with God, the faster the activity of God occurs in ministry.

The Mark passage above is one example of this. Jesus, having released His disciples in the afternoon (after feeding the five thousand), went to pray to our Father in solitude. (It seems He was praying with His eyes open at some point in the evening, because He saw that the disciples were challenged with the weather conditions on the lake. However, He remained on the mountainside in prayer.)

Now, let's take the conservative route, using today's sunset as our benchmark (6:32 p.m. in New York). The Scripture tells us that Jesus saw the disciples struggling with rowing in the evening, but He did not go out to them until the fourth watch of the night. "Evening" was a specific designation, corresponding to the period from sunset to 9 p.m., and was termed the first watch of the night. We read that Jesus began praying before evening. To be extremely conservative, let's say He started just before the first watch officially began- say, about 6:30.

The third watch ran from midnight to 3 a.m., and the fourth watch of the night ran from 3 a.m. to sunrise (which, here in New York, would be 6:57 a.m. tomorrow). We read that Jesus went out to His disciples at about the fourth watch of the night. Again, to be very conservative, let's say that He ended His prayer by the close of the third watch and had finished walking out to His disciples shortly after the start of the fourth watch.

How long is it from 6:30 p.m. to 3 a.m.? That is the minimum estimate of how long He remained in prayer. Not sleeping, nor daydreaming, but praying.

It is important, in all of this, to remember that Scripture says Jesus set aside His glory when He came to earth (see Philippians 2:5-7). In His humanity, He embraced this discipline of prayer. He, like Jabez, craved the blessing of God, the hand of God, the protection of God, the presence of God, and the guidance of God.

There is much that can be said about the ministry of Jesus. But I believe Pastor Martha went straight to the core of the matter: the immediacy of effect in Jesus's teaching and healing ministry was borne out of His extended hours of prayer, intercession, and communion with God. Jesus engaged this activity in His humanity. So can we.

We are full of excuses as to why we can't (or don't) pray. But, for these final 88 days of 2012, may I challenge you (and myself) to let go of the excuses? Let's embrace and engage a deeper intimacy with God.

Do you want to be like Jesus? Invest hours of prayer and experience the immediacy of miracles.

That's a fair trade.