My All-Nighter: A Lesson In Submission

I’ll admit it….

….I’ve never pulled an “all-nighter”. I know that it’s a typical college thing to do – staying up all night to finish a paper of study for a big test, but I’ve never done it.

I’d like to say that I never pulled an all-nighter because I was a diligent student who was always prepared well before bedtime, but the truth is…

…I love my bed!
It doesn’t matter if it’s a full-size bed at my parents’ house, or a lofted extra-long in a dorm room, or my brother-in-law’s old futon. I’ll sleep just about anywhere, mostly because I love to sleep.

That’s where I often get into trouble. A wise person once told me “the idols in your life are the things that you believe you cannot live without”. Huh. I never would have thought of my bed as an idol in my life, but many times this past year, I spent more time thinking about sleeping than I did thinking about the actual tasks at hand.

My bed became my refuge. It didn’t matter that I slept in 13 different beds over the last 12 months (impressive right?), as long as I was in “my bed”, nobody could touch me. In bed, wrapped up in a warm blanket, I could forget about the frustrations or stress of the day and I didn’t have to start thinking yet about the day to come. Just me and my bed.

Getting back to the all-nighter.

So I pulled an “all-nighter” the other night. It was another practice in the lesson that God has been teaching me this month. It’s a lesson in submission. Not so much being submissive to Him or to authorities, but teaching my body to be submissive to me.

Teaching my body to be submissive to me means that I do not live in the flesh. It means that I can exert self-control in terms of what I say, how I react, what I eat, what I do with my time, etc.

God completely convicted me in this area of my life and hit it home when I started reading the book “The Character of the Lord’s Worker” by Watchman Nee. It’s a fast read and it’s pure truth…none of the fluffy stuff.

In his book, Nee has a chapter on submitting our bodies. He states “I should discipline my body until it serves me, instead of me serving it”. It’s such a good point. How often do I get into trouble because I am listening to my body and not God? My stomach grumbles and I eat. My legs don’t want to move, so I don’t work out. I get offended by someone, so I say hurtful words. I feel tired so I go to bed instead of finishing my “to do list” (VERY GUILTY).

But it should be the other way around. My body should do what I tell it to do. My body submits to me, I submit to God, end of story.

Nee lists three ways that we should discipline our bodies:

1) Fasting
2) Prayer Vigils (aka “all-nighters)
3) Living out of our comfort zone.

So basically Nee says in one part is that if I call myself a true follower of Christ and have not ever spent the entire night in prayer/meditation, I should be EMBARRASSED! And I was. Here I am, trying to be a good example to these kids, and yet my bed is a priority in my life. We get up at 5 am to pray, and I’m the last one out of bed…pathetic.

Now really getting back to the “all-nighter”

Upon reading this, I decided “enough is enough” and that night I held my first all-nighter. I convinced Miriam to ditch her big bed for the night to sleep in my room with the girls. I stocked up on hot-water and tea. And I moved all the “necessities” to the living room.
Journal…check. English and Spanish Bibles…check and check. Ipod ready with worship music…check. Favorite pajamas…check. Comfy couch….check. I was ready to spend a night with God.

And I did it! I sent the girls to bed at 9:30 and sat down to pray, worship (well that part was standing up), read the Bible and spend some serious time with the Lord. The best part is: I felt so refreshed when 5 am rolled around and the kids came down for prayer. And the feeling lasted the whole day!

In general, it was a fantastic night! I am slowly learning to submit my body to the will of God and to have self-control over the desires of my flesh. And I am realizing that no matter how much I love my bed…I love God more and I need to put Him first in my life, NO MATTER WHAT.

All-nighters are fun…I think this might be a monthly thing.