Adult Education

A Call to Prayer

By Woodeene Koenig-Bricker

I recently asked a few friends if they regularly wake up in the middle of the night. Everyone agreed that, most nights, they wake up some time between 2 and 4, check the time, roll over (or go to the bathroom!) and go back to sleep. Even those without young children tend to wake up sometime between those hours.

I’m sure there is some scientific explanation having to do with circadian rhythms and sleep cycles and body temperature, but the fact that waking up in the still hours of the morning is an almost universal phenomenon began to intrigue me.

I decided I would pay attention to what was on my mind when I woke up—which was generally about 2:45 am. I fully expected it to be curiosity about the time or a full bladder or maybe even a cat that regularly jumped on the bed at that time.

But it wasn’t.

I discovered that most of the time I would wake up with someone very specific on my mind. Most often it was my son, but it was always someone close to me. At times I would have the unmistakable sense that I needed to pray for that person, not because something was wrong or because of some mysterious premonition, but because the Lord was calling me to prayer.

Now I don’t want to mislead you into thinking that I’m the type who regularly prays in the middle of the night. Most of the time, I can quite happily and easily just say, “Oh, I was thinking about so and so” and go right back to snoring. But the more closely I pay attention to the soft, still voice that has awakened me, the more I realize that one of the works I am called to do is to pray for those I love, especially the one I was allowed to help bring into this world.

One night last week I felt so compelled that I actually knelt by the side of the bed to pray for my son until the chill penetrated my bones and I gratefully crawled back under the blankets to sleep another hour or so before the claxon call of the alarm rousted me for the day. The next afternoon, he called and asked me to say some prayers for his girlfriend who wasn’t feeling well. Since he rarely asks me to pray for anything, the request was unusual. And directly linked, I believe, to the fact that I had allowed myself to become attuned to the Lord’s prompting during the night.

I know that when my son was young finding time to pray during the day seemed impossible and I would be so exhausted when I dropped into bed the thought of getting up to pray in the night would have been enough to give me cold shivers. And yet, how many nights was I up anyway? From the early morning feedings to the nights spent by the side of sick child to the hours waiting for a son to get home from a date or activity…the fact is I was already spending a good deal of the night up and awake.

I wish I had realized then that those were holy hours. I wish I had understood that those times were ready made for prayer, instead of worry and concern and frustration. I wish I had appreciated the fact that God was using the circumstances of my nightly life as opportunities to join with him in the work of co-creation through prayer. 

In those days, his call was as clear as the cry of a baby or the sound of keys in the back door. Now, his call is much subtler—a thought: “Do I have to go to the bathroom?”—and much easier to ignore.

And yet God continues to remind me that no matter what stage we are in our parenting lives, the greatest thing we can do for our children is to pray for them. 

Most especially in the middle of the night when spirits are lowest, temptations are greatest and our sacrifice of a few moments of rest can have eternal consequences.

Tonight, if we wake, we may we walk from the mountain of faith to the deep river of prayer.