On all night prayer vigilsPosted by Rick on May 31st, 2007
Have you ever been in a church that asks you to participate in an all night prayer vigil by donating an hour or half hour of your time to pray? Here’s a note of encouragement:
Unless we actually subject our bodies and stomach to a meaningful discipline, the actual sense of experiencing Christ’s suffering will elude us. As our bodies become tired and our muscles begin to ache, our eyes burn, our stomachs to hunger; and our spirits to grow dim, we begin to experience in a physical and psychological way a touch of our Lord’s pain. This physical and spiritual sadness is a way of actually entering into Christ’s death in an emphathetic way creating a sense of our spiritual oneness with him.~Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Time
And when we fall asleep, we can say to ourselves, “Could you not stay awake for one hour?”
I’ve often thought on the fact that suffering is a good thing that prepares us to meet our Maker, especially on our death beds. Somehow I missed this when relating to prayer. It’s no wonder darkness was so important to the early Christians.