Praying to Follow: Mark 1:35-39

If you have ever wondered what Jesus’ most important habit was, an unassuming passage in Mark’s gospel likely gives us a big clue about it. In it, we find Jesus doing something that the disciples did not expect, and it is something that we can just as easily do today as Jesus did back in the first century.

While this event is included in two of the four gospels, specifically Mark and Luke, for our time together in this episode, we’ll be reading from Mark’s version. This event, clue, and habit are found in the first chapter of Mark’s gospel, and we’ll read it from the New International Version. Starting in verse 35, Mark tells us that:

³⁵ 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. ³⁶ Simon and his companions went to look for him, ³⁷ and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”

³⁸ Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” ³⁹ So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

This passage may be easy to skim over, but if we do, we miss an important key into Jesus’ private life. While most of the gospels focus on Jesus’ public life, which included His healing, preaching, and teaching, Jesus’ private life was focused in on finding time to be alone to pray.

In a humorous turn of events, Jesus’ habit catches these early followers off guard, because while they are suppose to be following Jesus, they seemed to have lost Him and have to go out and find Him.

There are plenty of other examples we find in the gospels about Jesus taking the time to pray, and there are both public examples as well as private ones. But here in the first chapter of Mark’s gospel, I believe he wants to give us a baseline of Jesus habits. In a subtle way, Mark draws our attention onto Jesus’ private prayer life as the foundation of His public ministry.

But this isn’t the only habit that is hinted at in these short verses. While prayer is the most significant habit in this passage, it would be nothing without the habit that is demonstrated after the disciples find Jesus praying.

After the disciples exclaim that everyone from the town they were just in is looking for Jesus, we see Jesus reply with something that is a little strange. Instead of going back into town to find the people who were also looking for Him, Jesus redirects the disciples by saying in verse 38, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

The second habit that is demonstrated in this passage is that Jesus followed the Holy Spirit’s prompting that came from the close relationship He had with God through his prayer life. It is entirely plausible that God directed Jesus to the best private place to pray that morning, and He kept Jesus hidden from everyone else until the early disciples found Him. And during this prayer time, God prompted Jesus to leave this town and go to the other villages nearby and continue teaching, preaching, and healing there.

In this passage, when we stop and look at Jesus’ foundation and private life, nothing that is described is something we cannot do. The only things truly stopping us from carving out time for prayer are feeble excuses, such as not having any time, or being too busy. These excuses are weak because we can easily prioritize that which is important to us. If prayer was as important to us as it was to Jesus, we would be praying as much as Jesus prayed.

While too often we stay up too late, which then cascades us into sleeping in and rushing our mornings, this is ultimately a choice we are making. For most people, going to bed a little earlier so that getting up a little earlier is not as rushed is completely doable. This might mean not watching as many movies or television shows, or giving up some other activity, but whatever we must do to adjust both the evening and morning routines to make time to pray is vital to our spiritual lives.

After we have made time to pray, we must also choose a place to pray where we are less likely to be distracted by our surroundings. While most people, myself included, cannot get away from 100% of the distractions, I am able to minimize the number of things that are able to distract me by simply being strategic about where I choose to pray.

It’s quite likely that I am sharing what many in our listening audience already know and do. Many of us, if you have been following the challenges I end each podcast with for any length of time, will already have an active prayer life. If this is you, perhaps you know someone who would benefit from these messages and challenges.

But where many people stumble, and this includes me as well, is with the second habit that we see present. While prayer is crucial for our spiritual lives to be strong, we must not pray in a vacuum – both literally and figuratively. What this means is that we must take our Bibles into our prayer time, reading and claiming promises that God has shared throughout the Bible narrative, and then choosing to move forward with what He has impressed upon our hearts to do that align with His Word. God will not contradict Himself by telling us to do something opposite from what He told those in the past. While the circumstances and situations may be different, the themes and principles He shares won’t be.

Many of us take our Bibles with us to pray, but we don’t let the Holy Spirit speak into our lives or into our situations. Others will pray and be impressed to move forward but will chicken out or dismiss the prompts that God has given to us while we pray. However, when we don’t let the Holy Spirit speak into our lives, and when we don’t move forward with what the Holy Spirit has prompted us to do, we unknowingly stop our spiritual growth and our walk with God – and when described this way, we all can agree that stopping our walk with God is not something we would intentionally choose to do.

Prayer, Bible study, and Holy-Spirit-inspired action are the foundations for any successful God-centered ministry. It is also the foundation for Reflective Bible Study’s framework. While you don’t need my help to pray, study, and be inspired by the Holy Spirit, I am happy to help via long-distance through the Internet if you would like it. At the very end of this episode, I’ll share more about how I can help, but before we close out another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Choose to seek God first and prioritize Him as most important in your life. Demonstrate to yourself that you have prioritized God first by making time, if you haven’t already, to add regular prayer into your schedule. Remember, if prayer was as important to us as it was to Jesus, we would be praying as much as Jesus prayed.

Also, take your Bible with you to pray. Open up and claim promises that God has shared through the various events, prayers, and songs that the Bible includes and ask God to be present and active in your life and situation. While I have no idea what God’s presence will look like for you, I know this is a prayer that God is happy to answer.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or deviate away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!