“I’ll close my eyes and you pray.”
These words were uttered by the young student who had been the singing evangelist in the effort we had just finished in Buffalo, New York, as we sped along the New York Thruway back home, to New York City for me and on to Oakwood College for him.
It was the summer of 1965. As we drove past a gas station, I checked the gas gauge of my little 1963 Covair, and realized that I was dangerously close to empty. I asked Bernard to watch out for the next gas station so that I could refill. Laughing and talking about everything, as young people are apt to do, we looked up just as I zipped past the next gas station. The gas gauge was on E. I knew my car and I knew this was serious.
I said, “Bernie, we need to pray.” Without skipping a beat, he replied, “Okay, I’ll close my eyes and you pray.” So he closed his eyes and I watched the road and drove while I prayed. And yes, God answered. That little car took every bit of gas that the tank could hold.
The irony of those words, “I’ll close my eyes and you pray.” Bernie might as well have said, “I’ll close my eyes, but you watch the road while you pray.”
Have you ever tried to drive down the road with your eyes shut, with traffic whizzing past on either side? Of course not. Yet how often do we drive with our eyes spiritually shut while physically open to the pleasures of the world around us and our souls are running on fumes.
There is a verse in the Bible that actually says to watch the road and why. Nahum 2:1 – “A shatterer (an attacker) is come up against you. Guard the ramparts; Watch the road (keep your eyes open); gird your loins (prepare); Collect all your strength.”
There are many verses in the Bible that tell us why it is important to maintain watchfulness for our Lord who is coming. We too have an enemy who is lurking to detract us.
“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42).
“Watch therefore, for you do not when the master of the house is coming – in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning” (Mark 13:35).
“Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mark 14:38).
“Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36).
Every Lenten season I like to read Chapters 72-81 in the book, The Desire of Ages. Chapter 74 is the chapter titled, “Gethsemane,” and describes our Lord’s passion and agony the night before his crucifixion. This night, “He seemed to be shut out from the light of God’s sustaining presence. Now He was numbered with the transgressors. The guilt of fallen humanity (you and me) He must bear. Upon Him who knew no sin must be laid the iniquity of us all. So dreadful does sin appear to Him, so great is the weight of guilt which He must bear, that He is tempted to fear it will shut Him out forever from His Father’s love” (Desire of Ages, page 685).
His disciples, his very best friends on earth, held him up to keep him from falling. At the garden gate he leaves all but three of the disciples and asks them to pray for him and for themselves.
His humanity craved the companionship of other humans and he took his closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, further into the secluded recesses of the garden and desired them to spend the night in prayer with him.
“Tarry ye here, he said, and watch with Me” (Desire of Ages, page 686.2).
He went a little distance from them and fell prostrate on the ground and suffered. (You must read his suffering on pages 686 and on for yourselves. Your heart will be broken at what he suffered for you).
“In the supreme agony of His soul He came to His disciples with a yearning desire to hear some words of comfort… He longed to know that they were praying for Him… He staggered to the place where He had left His companions. But He ‘findeth them asleep.’… But they had not heeded the repeated warning, ‘Watch and pray.’… They did not realize the necessity of watchfulness and earnest prayer to withstand temptation… Addressing Peter, Jesus said, ‘Simon, sleepest thou? couldest not thou watch one hour?'” (Desire of Ages, 687-689).
Three times the Savior in his agony sought his disciples for comfort, only to find that in their weariness they had yielded to the strange stupor that overpowered them. A few hours later in the court of Caiaphas, Peter denied his Savior.
“Just before He bent His footsteps to the garden, Jesus had said to the disciples, ‘All ye shall be offended because of Me this night.’ They had given Him the strongest assurance that they would go with Him to prison and to death. And poor, self-sufficient Peter had added, ‘Although all shall be offended, yet will not I.’ Mark 14:27, 29. But the disciples trusted to themselves. They did not look to the mighty Helper as Christ had counseled them to do. Thus when the Saviour was most in need of their sympathy and prayers, they were found asleep. Even Peter was sleeping” (Desire of Ages, 688.2).
In the Desire of Ages, at the bottom of page 713, we read, “It was in sleeping when Jesus bade him to watch and pray that Peter had prepared the way for his great sin. All the disciples in that critical hour, sustained a great loss….Had those hours in the garden been spent in watching and prayer, Peter would not have been left to depend on his own feeble strength.”
Brothers and sisters, we are all driving down the road of this life. Let us keep our eyes open as we pray. Please watch and pray with me. Let’s keep each other alert.
“Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13).
Beth McCalla is a long-time elder at the La Sierra University Church and teaches the Sabbath School class behind the platform, closest to Sierra Vista.