Today’s guest contributor is a wonderful woman of God, named Edna, born and raised in Mexico. She married one of my close friends, Shane. They have twins named Daniel and Sofia who are on the cusp of becoming teens. We had the privilege of hosting the whole family at our house for a few days while they were visiting New England (they live in Texas now). This family inspires me! Here’s Edna’s lovely note:
Hello, I’m excited to share with you our family testimony. I’m married to a Jesus follower, and our constant goal is to be with Him. However, life is always getting in the way. 12 years ago we had the joy of welcoming into our family a boy and a girl. Our twins are a delight, but life has forever been changed. Our quiet time has never been quiet again :)
Now that we have kiddos, our plan includes regularly teaching them to love God and to commune with Him. They have a heart for God, and they love him, however, they also are in the midst of this earthly struggle to ensure that a time of the day is given the priority to spend with God. We have tried many things, and most have worked for a while. Then life happens.
In December, we were praying for a regular consistent time of worship together, then, we received the invitation to the 100 Days of Pursuit. We talked to the twins about it, and they immediately said yes. It has been wonderful, we have been consistent, and the kiddos are learning so much and engaging in the conversation. It is also fun to see them grow and watch how now their thinking and processing of spiritual things has developed. We are so thankful that we can spend time together and with our Creator. We can share with each other, pray, worship and journal every morning. Here is what our mornings look like:
Everyone is out of their rooms at 6:30 am. We start our devotional time at 6:45 to spend 45 minutes together. The devotional time is in our TV room. We sing a worship song from YouTube (my husband has created several lists with already selected songs, so we do not have to be browsing at the moment), then we project the devotional into the TV so everyone can read together and we take turns reading out loud the different sections. Above is a picture of the schedule our daughter wrote to keep us on track.
Edna, thank you so much for sharing how your family draws close to God together. I really don’t know how you get the kids out of bed at 6:45 to seek the Lord. That in itself is miraculous!
Atonement
Because we are approaching Good Friday I’d like to put our focus today on the story of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. This was just before He was arrested, beaten, flogged, dragged through the streets and crucified. Jesus knew what was coming.
It’s important to understand that the death of Jesus was voluntary. In fact, He decided to die for our sins before the foundations of the world were laid. This was the plan from the beginning. Sometimes people think the story of Jesus is sad, because, well, He seemed so innocent, and He was killed unjustly. While that’s true, there’s much more to it. His death was in our stead. He took the punishment that humanity deserved. He absorbed the wrath of God. So when we talk of Christ’s sufferings it’s not just that He died in a horrible way. He took upon Himself the sins of the world.
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:5-6
Imagine if I could somehow take upon myself all the guilt of crimes committed of all those on death row. Then I stand before the court and let them sentence me according to justice. Imagine the severity of the punishment I would receive. The cross is a little like that. All our guilt and shame was placed on Jesus and He was punished for it—instead of us!
Unique suffering
I’m saying that to make the point that what Christ was preparing to face was not just death by crucifixion. It was physical and spiritual suffering. It was like nothing we can even imagine. There have been many brave men and women who have faced death willingly. We can think of firefighters during 9/11 or soldiers during war. I think of many of the civil rights protesters who gave their lives courageously. I think of those who scale cliffs without any safety equipment. I think of my friend Jackie going into open heart surgery or Lori getting brain surgery without any worry. What Jesus was about to face was not just the death of his physical body. He was taking on the sins of the world in a unique kind of suffering. The story of Gethsemane is found in several of the gospels with varying details. Here’s the way Luke tells it.
And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Luke 22:39-46
Remove this cup
One thing Luke doesn’t mention, that both Mark and Matthew point out in their gospels, is that Jesus began to be exceedingly sorrowful and troubled as He came upon the Garden. What was in the “cup” that Jesus was about to drink is not something we can comprehend. But that it caused Him to be overwhelmed shows us the enormity of the suffering He was about to face.
Pages of exposition could be written on this passage but I just want to point out a couple of things as they relate to the pursuit of God. Jesus is showing us what to do when we are up against something overwhelming. We may not face crucifixion, and definitely will never bear the sins of the world, but, we may have to face cancer, or the loss of a loved one, or death. There are certain things that we naturally dread facing. We dread them so much that we pray earnestly that we can somehow avoid them. The prayer of Jesus gives us permission to pray this way. It doesn’t hurt to ask. Hezekiah was about to die, but he cried to the Lord—and God gave him an additional 15 years. Even Jesus was dreading the cross and asked if there was a way around it. He flat out said, “remove this cup from me”.
It helps to know that Jesus prayed to avoid the suffering He was about to face. Sometimes the way the will of God is talked about is that we should not question anything, and if something bad is on the horizon, we should just gracefully accept it as the Father’s perfect plan. All things work together for good—yes!—but not all things that we dread are God’s plan. If you are dreading something, it’s okay to cry out to the Lord to take it away. That’s what Jesus did. And He did it more than once. You get the idea from the accounts that He was really in anguish over this and pleading repeatedly for the Father to spare Him.
Nevertheless
That’s not all He prayed, however. He tempers His earnest request with these words: “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Along with following Jesus in asking God to remove something we dread, we also need to follow Christ in surrendering to the Father’s will. He essentially tells the Father that He doesn’t want to suffer in this way but that He will do it if that’s what the Father wants. Jesus was obedient.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5-8
Room for afflictions
These two aspects of the prayer of Jesus must be incorporated into our way of approaching the Lord. I think we sort of have the first one down. Most of us are pretty comfortable telling God exactly what we want or do not want. As humans we want to avoid anything unpleasant. Anything ahead of us that causes distress, we ask God to take away. Again, this isn’t wrong, Jesus did it. But if the only way we pray is asking for life to be pleasant, we will miss the purposes of God. We must leave room for afflictions.
I’m not saying it’s easy to pray this way at all, but when we are up against something we are dreading, and we’ve asked God to take it away, we must also tell God, “nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done.” This will test us to the core. Even with good things we want to do like purchase a house or move to another state or whatever, we should pray, “nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done.”
If we can learn to pray this way, we will have enormous peace in all situations. When Jesus came out of that prayer session He was no longer troubled. At that point He was resolved. He trusted the Father’s plans and yielded fully to His will.
Pause
It might be good to pause for a few moments and think about some of the things you dread about the future. Also, think about something you really really want. It could be a spouse or children or a car or a certain job or to get into a particular college. Our grip can be extremely tight on these things, right? Make a tight fist and imagine these things you want from God are in your hand. Now, loosen your grip slowly. Open your hand completely; let the wind blow your desires away; let the Lord do what He wants to do.
Trust
If this seems to you and I like a terrible idea, then we don’t trust the Father yet. Well, it’s not all or none. It just means perhaps we need to grow in our trust. Many people make the mistake of trusting God as long as He pretty much does what they want Him to do. As soon as something they perceive as bad happens, then trust is lost. But trusting God must go deeper than that. I’ve lived 53 years without any terrible tragedies, but I’ve had my share of afflictions. God has not always spared me from experiencing “bad” things—despite my earnest cries. What I can testify to is that He has always been with me in every situation. I trust that His presence will always take me through and that even when I don’t understand, He does. I trust He knows what is best for me always. He has my best interest in mind, always. Let’s trust Him with things we dread and things we want.