A great while before day

"And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." Mark 1:35

One verse, and four precise details: the hour, the light, the movement, the place.

See what comes before it. The evening before, at Capernaum, "all the city was gathered together at the door". He healed the sick late into the night and cast out demons. It is the busiest day we know of at the start of his ministry. And the next day, before dawn, he gets up.

The order is instructive. Prayer does not come after the rest he had earned; it comes instead of it. Mark, who writes the fastest and most economical gospel, takes the trouble to note the timing.

"A solitary place" — the Greek word is the one used of the wilderness where he was tempted. This is not a peaceful setting. It is an empty place, with nobody in it, chosen for that.

And what follows in the passage says why it mattered. Simon and the others go looking for him and find him: all men seek for thee. The whole town wants him back. He answers: let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also; for therefore came I forth.

In other words, it was in that solitary place, before daybreak, that he decided not to go back to where he was being acclaimed. Without that hour, the pressure of Capernaum would have won — and his ministry would have circled one town.

That is what morning prayer is for. Not only to be refilled. To decide before others decide for you.

Today. If your day is already full of people looking for you, that is not a reason to skip prayer: it is the reason for it. And if you cannot rise early, take the first empty moment you have, whatever it is, before the city gathers at your door.

---