"Simon! Are you asleep?"

Day 4 (10/04/08)

We are all familiar with Bible story where Jesus goes off on His own to pray and returns to find his disciples sleeping...twice! He urges them both times to watch and pray. In fact, he very blatantly addresses Peter saying, "...Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak," (Mark 14:37-38, NKJV). I guess it's easy for me to imagine myself in that situation - caught in the act, a rush of embarrassment, the feeling of failure, yet so, so tired and barely able to open my eyes.

Fast-forward to the present age of comfy couches, portable devices, and a plethora of unnecessary stimuli. After spending my Saturday playing imaginary slumber party with two great kids, having dinner with their parents, and enjoying dessert with some other friends, I was pretty wiped. Once I got back home, the list of things to do before calling it a night was pretty short: feed Winston, respond to an e-mail, get ready for bed, and pray the Paraklesis. I whipped through the first three tasks but decided to put off the Paraklesis until I knew it would be the very last thing I did that night. I had completed the things I needed to do, and it was only 10:30pm. So, why not peruse Facebook and read a few more articles online? Bad idea. An hour and a half later I was laying on the couch fighting to keep myself awake. It was now midnight and I hadn't started my last item of business. The thought of skipping my prayers didn't really cross my mind - my spirit was indeed willing. However, I was very comfortable laying on the couch (my bed for the evening) with my laptop and a nice blanket and didn't feel much like moving. Then it occurred to me that I could just quickly log onto this blog, click the link to the Paraklesis, and conveniently pray from the comfort of my living room. Another bad idea (on so many levels). Needless to say, I was asleep in less than twenty minutes.

That sums up Day 4 for me. We're not even a quarter of the way through our experiment, but the flesh is proving to be mighty weak already. But, I'm not discouraged. Rather, I'd like to reiterate what Trisha told me on Day 5, "...it's been hard to be consistent, but that hasn't affected [our] determination."