Fourth Watch

So next Sunday, I take over the high school Bible class at our church. Who knows how many kids will actually come. I want it to be meaningful and practical, so naturally I started worrying about what to teach. (worrying of course is the 8th deadly sin).

I did some surfing around here on the web on "prayer," and one of the topics that caught my attention were "prayer-watches." Evidently, in a number of cities, it is a growing activity to be praying during specific times of the night while other people pledge to stay up praying about the same things at the same times. Kinda interesting.

Apparently there is some historical and Scriptural background to this. In Old Testament times, watchmen were assigned to one of three shifts throughout the night to watch over a city. The Romans had four such watches; First watch was 6-9 pm, Second watch was 9-Midnight, Third watch (like the now defunct NBC series) was Midnight-3 am, and the one I always seemed to get stuck with when chaperoning junior high lock-ins and high school youth gatherings... Fourth Watch was 3-6 am.

Jesus implored the disciples to "keep watch" and pray in the garden in Gethsemene. This passage always makes me feel guilty, even if Jesus meant it as an analogy rather than literally.
Maybe this is because for years I would get up at 4:30 in the morning to read the Bible, go for a walk and pray. It has been years since I've done this. Once you have kids, it's hard to find time alone with God (T.A.W.G.) and if you actually get up that early, you're bound to be grouchy and irritable, or at least sluggish during the day.

At any rate, one of these websites that I found, obviously not a very Lutheran one, suggested that the Fourth watch was special because there was so much more spiritual activity at this time and important things happen. Well, duh, armies always launch operations just before dawn, right? Because people need SLEEP! God designed us that way.

Needless to say, the power of suggestion is a terrible thing. It could be concern over several of my students who have been facing some life altering trials lately, it could be God actually wanting me to offer up the sacrifice of sleep deprivation in order that He might talk to me (like Samuel or something), or it might be that we were at a family reunion with 11 of us (ages 2-65) all sleeping in the same cabin. After the second child threw up, it was clear to me that I wasn't going to get much sleep the other night. My wife gave up and took the 2 year old out to the van around 1:30, my teenage nephew finally turned in about 2:30 and my 10 year old nephew was bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6.

But I will tell you, it did feel good to spend so much time talking to God. I never did figure out if or what He was trying to tell me that night, but you can bet I kept telling Him how tired I was the next day.