Keeping Watch

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour?  Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  Mark 14: 37-38

This morning, as I parked and admonished the schnoodle to "STAY" while I went in to my daughter's high school, I wondered about the beautiful, always cheerful friend I needed to update our accounts with.  "What does she need prayer for?" I thought.  She always seems fine.  There must be something...we all have something.  
I found her with a bandaged and sling-tied arm, describing to several moms the very serious car accident her family had just experienced.  She spoke calmly, giving God praise for the close call, that left them with only cuts, soreness and a broken bone or two...all mendable. 
 "I can't believe you're not all dead," the sheriff at the scene had repeated over and over.  

Have I been sleeping?  Where and how must I wake up and keep watch?  

Who is this Man...who prays and sweats blood, and keeps telling his disciples to wake up and keep watch?  Here in Mark 14, He tells them to pray that they will not fall into temptation.  

In Luke 12, Jesus describes keeping watch.  “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning,  like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him.

In Mark, we are to keep watch against the "betrayer" the tempter of our weak flesh.  Our sleepiness and lack of prayer is an open door for him.  How often I go about my day lazily, even sleepily.  Certainly not aware or ready for the life-changing instant that my friend described at school.  Life seems long,and mostly the same, day after day.  It is easy to think it will always be like this.  

And yet, keep watch.  This phrase is way more frequent all through God's word than I realized.  Watch and pray, the betrayer is near.  And also be dressed and ready for service.  

The Master is soon to return.  May we not snooze through life.  May we not take a moment as simply time passing.  There is praying to do.  There are lamps to keep burning.  The betrayer comes, but even so, the Master also is soon to return.  

Days will not always be like this one.  Bones break, glass shatters, a moment comes and goes, and somehow, this Savior knows, watches, prays for us. Get dressed, be ready for service, open the door immediately, as our Jesus comes to us.  
Beloved, watch and pray.