From one perspective, the Dawn Prayer I attended last week was a waste of time!
This year, the dawn prayer week coincides with a busy period for me. I could only attend one session on the fourth day. By Wednesday night, I was totally exhausted from conducting an executive training course the previous two days. It was also the start of the new academic year, so there were many meetings and important stuff crying out for my attention. Go for Dawn Prayer? Waking up early and reaching church by 6.00 am to pray? No thanks, what I need most was physical rest... sleep! (Even the pastor jested that the last time he woke up so early was a year ago, during last year’s dawn prayer).
But I found myself amongst a gathering of God’s people at the dawn prayer on Thursday (August 4). What happened at the dawn prayer was the same routine you would get in a usual church service or CG meeting… opening prayer, worship, word, and pray… Come to think about it, we didn’t get to pray much… at most 10 mins?
I am sure many have testified how tremendously blessed they were from attending the Dawn Prayer. Well, what I received that morning was nothing out of the extraordinary… In fact, I found the worship normal, the word sharing good and the prayer session short! Well, I did sensed a closeness to God during worship and also felt God speaking to me during the word exhortation, but really this is no different from having a good daily communion time with God.
But I found myself amongst a gathering of God’s people at the dawn prayer on Thursday (August 4). What happened at the dawn prayer was the same routine you would get in a usual church service or CG meeting… opening prayer, worship, word, and pray… Come to think about it, we didn’t get to pray much… at most 10 mins?
I am sure many have testified how tremendously blessed they were from attending the Dawn Prayer. Well, what I received that morning was nothing out of the extraordinary… In fact, I found the worship normal, the word sharing good and the prayer session short! Well, I did sensed a closeness to God during worship and also felt God speaking to me during the word exhortation, but really this is no different from having a good daily communion time with God.
Let me do a cost-and-benefit analysis of my attending the Dawn Prayer… 2 hours of sleep, ½ hour stuck in the morning heavy traffic after the service, and the feeling of tiredness throughout the day... as they say, walking half asleep, half awake…! So, from one perspective, it is a waste of time!
However, I learnt from the pastor’s sharing from Mark 14:1-11 at the Dawn Prayer that nothing offered to God sacrificially is a waste of time. What men would considered as wasteful, from Jesus’ perspective, it is considered as worship!
Case in point is the incident where Mary broke the alabaster jar of expensive perfume and poured it lavishly on Jesus. Consider the cost of this act – the perfume was worth a year’s wages… so if you are earning $60,000 a year, imagine spending the whole amount at one go…
When the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, for what purpose is all this waste? And they rebuked her harshly (Mark 14:4-5). In a way, they are justified to think that Mary was wasteful… imagine what could be done with $60,000? Wouldn’t it be better utilized to feed the poor and hungry? Their reasoning, giving money to the poor & helping people in a more practical way, was certainly reasonable, but an excuse nonetheless… indeed men are good at justifying their actions… working hard to provide for the family, spending time with family, taking care of the next generation, helping others, and taking a rest … they are all good reasons, but they could also be excuses for not ministering to the Lord.
Our alabaster jar is filled with a precious thing… our whole life. Like Mary, we need to break it and give it ALL to the Lord. To the world, this is a waste, but that is what God wants… that we pour out our life to HIM! To the world giving of oneself to Jesus is a pure waste. They say, why pour it out and waste it on Jesus? Waste simply means giving too much… Waste means you give something too much for something too little… But let us not be waste conscious Christians who give as little as possible to the Lord and yet want to get as much as possible from Him. Often waste gives us an excuse not to do anything…
Three more thoughts:
1) “And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” (John 12:3)… when we break our alabaster to minister to Jesus in an act of loving extravagance and spontaneous generosity, others around us will be blessed too.
2) “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me…”, said Jesus (Mark 14: 6-9). Just as he rose to Mary’s defense, Jesus is our defender when the world accuses us of being wasteful to the Lord!
1) “And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” (John 12:3)… when we break our alabaster to minister to Jesus in an act of loving extravagance and spontaneous generosity, others around us will be blessed too.
2) “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me…”, said Jesus (Mark 14: 6-9). Just as he rose to Mary’s defense, Jesus is our defender when the world accuses us of being wasteful to the Lord!
3) “She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial” (Mark 14:8). Christ’s death on the cross is but a costly outpouring of God’s love for the world. For God so love the world that He wasted his one and only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for us so that we may have everlasting life. As Christians, we are the recipients of God’s wasteful love.
Exhortation:Let us waste our time and resources in sacrificial service and giving to the Lord. In the eyes of God, worship is never wasteful! The real waste is when we use our life and resources for temporal things. What a waste then! Rather, let’s be wasted for Jesus!
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