Sleep vs. Prayer: Plan A vs. Plan B

God has asked me this one simple thing, this tiny little sacrifice--sleep a little less if necessary; you don't even have to if you go to bed on time--and watch with me at 5:00 in the morning.

How can it be that it is THIS hard?

It's not like I should be that tired. I have the most flexible time schedule and the least amount of work responsibilities that I have had in years. It's not that I'm too busy, or too stressed, or anything. But for some reason, I am being violently opposed on this front. What is going on? What in the world?

Let me go back to the gospel. The gospel gives me power to overcome sin, no matter how violently it opposes me or how addicted I am.

Lord, preach the gospel to me again. Remind me of what it says. Show me how and why I have fallen off from living in the power of the resurrection.

Lord, bring me to the secret place, and let me get in and not leave.

I just fell asleep for like 20 minutes, which is ridiculous, because it's 9:00 in the morning. I do not need a nap! Sleep is temporarily trumping the gospel. The skirmish is going the wrong way. But sleep must ultimately lose. It must be judged. I must be delivered.

Frightening to think that sleep could win the skirmish for the rest of my life if I give sway to it. Yet on the other hand, tomorrow could be the first day of a lifetime of faithfulness if I enter into the power of the gospel and walk in it and give no place to the flesh.

This morning when my alarm went off, I consulted my body to see if it was tired, and it was, so I went back to sleep. But I am not to consult my body; I am supposed to consult Jesus to see if He wants me to get up and pray, and if the answer is yes, then it doesn't matter what my body says, HIS word goes.

Can I trust Jesus to get me up, even though I can't trust myself? Yes. How foolish of me to constantly look to the flesh to get me up when I know it never will. How absurd to start 8 years ago with "Plan A: Self Reliance: I trust myself to get myself up."

Failure that day.

Next day, "Oh, let's try Plan A again."

Failure again.

Next day: "Oh, I know! Let me try Plan A!"

Failure.

8 years later: "I'm going to try plan A tomorrow morning and see if I get up."

UMMMM... HELLO? DUH!

PLAN B!! Trust Jesus to get you up!

It just shows how much trust I had in the flesh for me to keep going back to it all those times, even when it repeatedly proved untrustworthy, and how little I trusted Jesus. He never failed me, yet I say to myself, "Oh, no, HE can't be expected to get me up. I'd better rely on myself." Ridiculous, preposterous, when you put it in that light, but I have literally been that ridiculous continually in this ongoing struggle.

There is nothing for me to do but cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Abba Father! Deliver me from myself, and preach the gospel to me, and let me look only to Jesus!"

• Jesus to come and get me up. 
• Jesus to say whether or not I am to get up. 
• Jesus to provide the power to get up. 
• Jesus to defeat the flesh, which opposes me getting up (He has already done it!)
• Jesus to be the sweetness and the presence in the secret place.
• Jesus to impart His life to me in exchange for my dead self.
• Jesus to bear the judgment of God on my sin. 

Jesus! How could I look to anyone but You?