Every once and while my squad does this thing where we stay up all night long in prayer and worship with the Lord. We call it a “prayer burn” or a “worship burn”. It looks a little different each time, but the main goal is to spend a whole night pressing into the Lord, sometimes over a certain topic or issue. You can stay up the whole night or just come for a few hours.
I’ve never stayed up the whole night for one until this past Friday. I usually stay up late to be a part of it for several hours, but I’ve never been passionate about it enough to sacrifice a whole night of sleep. I’ve always had excuses too, like “I need to prioritize my rest” or “I won’t be able to give my all at ministry if I don’t sleep”. Valid, but I didn’t know what I was missing.
This time, however, I decided I was going to stay up the whole night. From 10:00 pm until the sun rose the next day at 7:00 am. Spiritually, I knew I needed it. So I went to my ‘shift’ at our makeshift coffee shop on campus at 8:45 pm and made myself a double shot latte, then grabbed my sleeping pad, blankets, and snacks to bring to the church right before we started.
We began with a time of “spirit-led worship”. Basically, spirit-led worship is just communal worship without any structure. We’ll usually start by singing whatever worship songs come to mind, led by whoever feels called to, passing the guitar around from person to person. Soon, everyone starts singing their own song to the Lord. Some stand up with their arms raised, some are on their knees, some are even dancing. No shame and no fear, just beautiful and raw worship.
While I definitely felt the Lord’s presence here, I started being attacked by comparison, something I’ve definitely felt before. I saw my squadmates, the ones who were standing, shouting, and dancing, and wondered why I couldn’t seem to do what they were doing. In that moment, and honestly, for weeks before this, I was feeling something I can only describe as heaviness.
“I’m here and I’m singing,” I told the Lord, “But I can’t do what they’re doing. I’m too heavy, and I don’t understand why you won’t take this from me.”
I felt His presence, but I didn’t hear an answer. It was about midnight, and I was already tired. This is where I would usually give up and go to bed. But something about this time was different.
I took a freezing cold shower at one in the morning to wake myself up. Then we watched a documentary about discipleship making in the 10/40 window called “Sheep Among Wolves”. (Did you know the underground church in the middle east is the fastest growing church in the world and it’s majorly led by women? Pretty cool.) It was really interesting, but I admit to dozing off a little bit during this.
Throughout the night, I was drinking coffee and eating snacks with my squad, enjoying how funny everything is at 3:00 am. We had some time of personal devotion and speaker worship where I did what I’ve been recently learning to do: giving my heaviness to the Lord, even if it’s messy. Then, my squad read through the book of John, to remind ourselves of the simplicity of the gospel. This is where a lot of people started to crash, but I was determined to stay up and press into this time as much as I could. Me and a few friends stayed up trying not to laugh as everyone took turns reading because literally everything is funny this early in the morning.
When 6:00 rolled around and the sky started to change colors, we went and worshipped over by the pool. We were still laughing and singing off-key because hey, we’ve been awake for 24 hours, but it was worship nonetheless. I watched the sunrise and realized something: in that moment, I felt so light. For the first time in a while, I felt like I did when I was a kid at church camp: simply sitting in the joy and goodness of the Lord.
I’m so glad I stayed, I thought. I’m so glad I pushed through. You came through, God.
We counted down to 7:00 am like it was New Year’s and celebrated by jumping into the pool fully clothed. Well, “pushed” is a better word. But that’s okay, because I was on cloud nine, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I loved these people who had become family and how good the Lord is.
Joy comes in the morning. Huh.
I love how the Lord works.
“Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people;
praise his holy name.
For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may stay for the night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
Psalm 30:4-5
