One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them. (Luke 6:12-13 NIV)

A close friend of mine has an adult child who spent several years running from God. It wasn’t a series of short sprints either, but more like a marathon. Alcohol and recreational drugs were an easy trap for someone with addictive tendencies and family history. New relationships always turned into broken relationships, and her two boys were pulled through the pain. She bounced in and out of rehab programs while her family kept encouraging her, loving her, and praying for her. For almost a decade, they wept through every setback, they scooped up the kids for time with the rest of the family, they kept believing that God wanted her to be free from the bondage, and they kept praying.

Because I am one who has trouble remembering to pray for things for more than about a week, I can’t even wrap my head around “praying it through” for almost ten years. Maybe that’s why I usually only see God make the impossible become possible through the prayers of others. You guessed it—my friend’s daughter is a new creation. She has new purpose and direction in her life. She is chasing after God and expressing God’s love back to those who stayed beside her, fought for her, and refused to stop praying.

Whenever I read these verses in Luke 6, I wonder about the mystery of prayer and what I might be missing. This is Jesus, the Son of God. Seems like he was well equipped to select the twelve apostles from among his disciples, on his own, right? Instead, he waited for this moment when he had spent the whole night praying to God.

~Richard L. Rogers

Reflection

Why do you think Jesus spent so much time praying? Is there a major decision or situation that you should be praying about? Is there someone who desperately needs you to be praying for them?

Challenge

Take a picture of something that represents who or what you need to be praying for as if someone’s depending on it. Then make that picture the lockscreen image on your phone to remind you.

From A Generous Life: 28 Days of Devotion. Copyright © 2019 Abingdon Press. All rights reserved.