Then
Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he
said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.” He
took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and
distressed. He told them, “My soul is
crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” He went on a little farther and bowed
with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let
this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done,
not mine.” (
Sometimes we can become so troubled
that we need to take our prayer time with God to the next level or go a little
deeper or go a step further as Jesus did in v. 39. It says, “He went on a
little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If
it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want
your will to be done, not mine.” See, His disciples started with Him but
scripture says that He was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. So
for Jesus in this text, going a little further meant stepping away from His
disciples, going to God alone and pouring His heart out. Though He knew what He
was called to do, that didn’t stop Him from feeling overwhelmed, afraid, or
even wanting God to change His mind about sending Him to the cross.
Our burdens are not even close to
what Jesus was experiencing but we can learn from Him. It is okay to be scared
or overwhelmed with sorrow sometimes but we must know that we need to take that
sorrow to God. We’re often quick to tell our sisters to pray for us and yet do
not take the time to pray for ourselves. There are times when those closest to
you just can’t quite grasp how heavy your burden is or how badly you need God
to move in your life. Look at the disciples. Jesus had an “I NEED YOU NOW”
situation. He asked his disciples to pray, and yet they went to sleep. Sometimes
our friends “sleep” on praying for us. Not in the literal sense, but because
they don’t do so with urgency or don’t pray as fervently like we need them to.
In this text, Jesus went to God three
times, back to back, about the same thing. And this just brings to mind that sometimes
life can be so tough that our only option is to stay on our face in prayer.
Some situations require us to step
outside of our normal daily prayer routine. Or even our daily routine. This
could mean skipping out on the next gathering (which I hope you're not gathering at this time anyway), turning off the TV &
internet, powering off the cell phones, and giving that time to God.
But what do you do when it seems you
don’t have the extra time to go a little further? I mean from the moment you’re
out of bed until you’re back in it again, your day is filled with activities
and things to do. You’re just so busy. I can recall about five years ago, I
started getting up an hour earlier than normal just so that I could pray and
meditate on God’s Word. At the time, my oldest daughter was five and we know
that kids that age have questions about everything. Well, she started getting up
early as well and I would send her back to bed. And she’s like, its morning and
you’re up. Why do I have to go back to bed and why would you want to be up all
by yourself? She wanted to be my company I guess, but what she didn’t
understand is that I already had company; I wasn’t alone. And since she started
waking up early, I had to start getting up even earlier until that wasn’t
working and I started staying up late at night. So whatever going a step
further in your prayer time looks like for you -whether that’s waking up early,
using your lunch break or staying up late, take some time to go the extra step
in seeking God. And it doesn’t matter if you’re currently going through a rough
spot in life or not we all need a daily refreshing of being in God’s Word and
in prayer.
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