Early in the Morning

"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed".
-Mark 1:35
     Today at my church we had a message on the ending of Mark chapter 1. An interesting thing about Mark's gospel is that it goes through events quickly, not going into as much detail as the other gospels. The passages that we study as a church tend to be short, so we can expand on the events of Jesus' life as described in Mark. For this post, I just want to talk about the one verse I have written above.
     This verse is quite short, but it tells us a couple important things. The first is that Jesus prayed in the morning, while it was still dark. My church has a daily prayer meeting at 5:30 am, where often times it is still dark. I can tell you that in the few times I have went to these prayer meetings, it has been very hard for me to wake up. I imagine that Jesus must have been a tired man, since He was always preaching, teaching, healing or driving out demons. However, Jesus still made sure He had time to pray, by waking up in the early morning.
     What else does this verse reveal about Jesus' prayer? It says that He left the house and went off to a solitary place. Jesus went away from the house and to a solitary place so that He would have no distractions while He prayed. He didn't want to wake the disciples, because they probably would have bothered Him. Jesus wanted to make sure that His prayer was between Him and God, and that nothing would get in the way of His prayer.
     The first question that I had while reading this passage is "why did Jesus even need to pray?" If Jesus is God, why does He need to spend time with God? I think the answer is that Jesus wanted to pray. He probably didn't need to pray, but He wanted to. Why would Jesus want to spend time in prayer? One main reason is to teach us to pray. Jesus wanted to set us an example that we could follow. Why should we pray if Jesus didn't pray? Jesus didn't just want to tell us how to live, but to show us how to live.
     Another sign that Jesus wanted to pray is that He did it early in the morning. I once read that the most important things you do are when you first wake up and before you go to bed. Jesus wanted to make sure that He was in line with His Father's will before He even did anything else. Think about people who get up early to do something. The most common types of people who get up early are people who get up to exercise. They wake up super early so that they can go jog or work out at the gym. Why? They understand the importance of exercise, and want to make sure they have time everyday to get in shape. They exercise in the morning so that they have no distractions that can take time away from exercising. People who wake up early in the morning do it because they have a desire to do something they find important.
     I believe that following Jesus' example of getting up early to pray is one of the most practical ways to change your spiritual life. If we wake up early to pray, we are saying that God is more important than anything else, and that He is worth waking up for. Waking up early ensures that we have no distractions that can take away time from prayer. Of course, waking up in the morning is never easy. How do we do it? The answer is that you have to learn to enjoy prayer. You also have to learn to prioritize prayer. If you don't think prayer is important, or that it is enjoyable, getting up to pray is impossible. Just remember this- if Jesus, a perfect man, prayed everyday, how much more important is it that we, who are imperfect, need to pray?
-Smart