The will

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

THE WILL

Luke 22:39-46

39 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. 40 On reaching the place, he said to them, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation."  41 He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."  43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.  45 When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. 46 "Why are you sleeping?" he asked them. "Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation." 

NIV

There has been much written about this time of Jesus in the garden and his prayer along with the disciples falling asleep instead of staying awake to pray also. Other gospels have some more details of this moment in the life of Jesus, but we have enough here to learn what we need. First we can know without doubt that Jesus is divine, fully God, yet by this moment we can also know he is fully man, and experiences the same anguish all men have regarding the suffering of death, and especially in his case, an awfully painful one. We at least are not aware of how we will face the moment, how death of our body will come, but Jesus knew, being divine. Yet his human nature was not looking forward to the painful journey to death of his body. But he demonstrated for us the way to live, even in the most difficult of times. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. So often we make every effort to live by our own will, rather than by the will of God. Surely if there was another way for the justice of God to be satisfied, he would have spared his Son the terrible experience, but there was no other way to redeem us. He established this as the way, and it had to be done his way, period. How can we live any other way? How can we insist on our way? We do that with other people, especially those closest to us, and more than likely we carry some of that kind of thinking into our prayer life. We pray to God for our will to be done. Maybe we can learn something about his disciples falling asleep instead of remaining awake so they would not fall into temptation. Maybe when we are always asking God for our will, we have fallen asleep spiritually and are being tempted to be self-centered rather than God-centered. Even when we pray that he will direct our paths, we are hoping for the path we want, rather than the path he has for us. We might be tempted to live our lives as we want and use God as an excuse for what we are doing, saying this is his call on our lives. But the fact is God always has a plan, he does order our footsteps. He is divine and all-knowing thus he knows the best path for us and how that path will bring him the most glory and honor.  When we decide to become his disciple, when we accept what Jesus did on the cross for us, we also have to come to terms with the fact that our old nature dies and we are born again, a new creature in Christ and we belong to God, we are his to do with as he sees fit. We are to live for his purpose not ours. Can that bring us some form a blessing? Sure thing. Can it bring us some form of suffering? Yes it can. But in either case, we need to be ready, willing and able to pray, not my will, but yours be done.