The old gospel song ‘O Happy Day’ has the line ‘He taught me how to watch and pray (watch and pra-ay)’; our verse of the year, Colossians 4:2 encourages us to ‘be devoted to prayer, being watchful and thankful’.
There are many examples of being ‘watchful’ in Scripture, and it’s a theme Jesus often speaks of, but what does it really mean to ‘watch and pray’?
As I mentioned in Sunday’s sermon, one great example is the Parable of the 10 Virgins in Matthew 25 v 1 – 13. In this parable, which I encourage you to read, Jesus is speaking about being alert to the fact that He will one day come again. In the story, Jesus speaks of ten virgins, waiting for the bridegroom to come and choose them, but they don’t know when he will come. Five brought enough oil so that if he came in the night, they could light their lamps; the other five were unprepared. Of course, he came in the night, so the five with oil, could light their lamps and literally, wait and watch for when he came; the others had to pop to the all night garage to get oil, and whilst they were there, he came and went without them.
Jesus uses this parable to explain the importance living a life of holiness, prepared and ready for Christ to come at any moment, and to live a life of prayer, alert to God showing up at any moment in our lives.
However, we see a very real example of what it means to watch and pray in the life of David.
2 Samuel 5 v 24:
“As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the trees, move quickly, because that will mean the LORD has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army.”
God and David had an intimate relationship through prayer, one which we can experience today too because of Christ Jesus. David, newly appointed as king of Israel as well as Judah, was about to go into battle again, but Israel’s long standing enemy, the Philistines, were out to get him. They had filled the valley, about to capture David and subsequently defeat Israel. But David prayed. Not to defeat the people, but to ask the LORD what to do. To bring his concerns to God and to seek God’s guidance. God tells David where to position himself and the Israelite army.
The first lesson on ‘watching’ for us is to seek God’s guidance – where is He moving, and where is He calling us to be.
The second lesson in watching, is to wait. In verse 24 as we’ve read, God tells David to wait. To watch and listen, and when David heard marching, saw the trees move, then he knew that God had gone to prepare the way.
David did just as he heard from God, and the result was a great victory.
The third lesson for us is obedience. Waiting is hard, difficult, tough. But being in the prayerful position God wants us to be, strategically places us before God. From there, He leads us to the strategic place He wants us to be, where we then wait in that place.
Being obedient, means to only move when He tells us to.
This sometimes means killing the fleshly desire for urgency; sometimes God calls us to something, puts it on our heart now, for it isn’t for now. The wise follower of Jesus watches. Seeking God’s guidance, and waiting until the moment when we ‘hear the marching in the trees’ ahead of us. Then we obediently follow.
Too often in life, and church life, we’re pushing for what to do next. We feel we must be doing more. We fear missing out. We cram every hour of our day, every bit of spare time with activity. We press on into the next big thing leaving other things half done and when we live like this, we miss the gentle whisper of God, we miss the sound of marching in the poplar trees.
Isolation is teaching us many things, my prayer for us as a church, and for me personally, is that it teaches us to stop doing more. God doesn’t want us doing more stuff, He wants us to watch and pray, moving only when He whispers for us to do so, as His will is the place of richest blessing.
Pastor Lee.