Sleepy Worship, Wide Awake Worship
3 But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord hears when I call to him.
4 Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.
1 Give ear to my words, O Lord; consider my groaning.
2 Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray.
3 O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.
At some point some angry preacher sent around a message about how you’d better not fall asleep while you’re praying because that’s disrespectful. I can see why he’d say that. If you fell asleep while talking to a president or a king, that would get you in trouble. But that’s not exactly how the Bible shows it.
Yes, Jesus scolded the disciples when they fell asleep and couldn’t stay up and pray the night before He died, but that tends to be the exception and not the rule.
There are several places in the scriptures where prayer and worship in bed, while falling asleep, or while waking are all mentioned in a favorable light. The Lord delights in us when we are meditating on Him and who He is. Paul even wrote over a thousand years after King David wrote those Psalms “pray without ceasing.”
So go for it.
You can do like Bret talked about in his sermon. Tell Jesus thanks before you do anything in the morning. Let your thanksgiving culminate into thanking God for being Himself!
You can do what Frank Viola recommends: pray in such a way that the name of Jesus is the first thing on your lips when you wake up and the last thing you say before you fall asleep. He wakes up simply saying “Jesus” and calling on His name. At night, he says Jesus’ name over and over, meditating on who Jesus is until he falls asleep.
Of course, the most startling I’ve ever experienced was while staying in a room of 4 Mennonite men. When the alarm clock went off, every one of them jumped out of bed and knelt down, with their faces on their mattresses. They each prayed for a while, sometimes out loud, before they stepped away from their beds.
I know another guy that kneels next to his bed to pray every morning because he says “This is about as far as I can go without God’s help, so I just stop right there.”
Feel free to worship God and fall asleep. Feel free to worship God and lay out some requests in the morning that you can watch out for throughout the rest of the day. The Lord is ready to receive your worship. He loves to share that time with you.
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