Welcome back to our 40 day devotional journey through the Season of Lent.
Day 9
Today's reading is Matthew 26: 36 - 41 ...
Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and He told the disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 Taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. 38 Then He said to them, “My soul is swallowed up in sorrow —to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with Me.” 39 Going a little farther, He fell facedown and prayed, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.”
40 Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping. He asked Peter, “So, couldn’t you stay awake with Me one hour? 41 Stay awake and pray, so that you won’t enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
In the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night before He was to be executed, Jesus goes off to pray alone, and asks His disciples to wait and pray. Twice when He returns to them, He finds that they have dozed off. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” He asks.
I don’t think that He's upset with them that they were feeling weary from an intense season of ministry when He asks this. Rather, He's trying to let them know how important the task was that He'd left them to do, when He said: "Watch and pray."
He knew that these moments in the Garden of Gethsemane were not only a crucial time of preparation through prayer for Him , but they needed it too. These few hours were their preparation for the intense challenges that lay just ahead.
Later, when the time comes for Jesus to die, we know what happens. "When the going got tough, the disciples scattered like the wind," as Susan Narjala puts it.
But what if they, like Jesus, had wrestled in prayer that night, and kept up the battle until they came to a point of complete obedience and surrender, like Jesus did? Would they have been better equipped to stand their ground when Jesus was arrested?
Jesus knew just how fragile their faith could be. And he gave them – as He gives us – the armour we need to guard our hearts and minds against that fragility - the armour of prayer!
This Lent, let's take some time to ask ourselves some possibly hard questions:
What is my go-to response in the face of pressure? Do I go in fight or flight mode? Or do I stay in faith mode, depending on God to see me through?
Do I spend time in prayer to prepare for my daily battles, so that my armour is already on when the challenge comes?
And then let's pray to the Father to help us never to discount the power of prayer. Let's be intentional about carving out time to spend at His feet daily, wrestling in prayer so we gain the spiritual readiness and fortitude we need to face challenges. Let us be those of Christ's followers who "watch and pray", so that we don’t fall into temptation to lose faith when the battle rages.
