We live in a day and age when we believe we can do anything we set our minds to and we can control our ‘universe’ by the choices we make. We learn to modulate our tone of voice and choose our words to gain cooperation, acceptance, admiration, etc. from others depending on our goals. We learn from science that if you put A with B, you will get AB and if you remove C from CD you will get D. It is very clear that this is how the world works.
So when it comes to God and praying, we tend to believe that if we do everything just right, our prayers will be answered according to our wishes, hopes and dreams. We look for verses in the Bible about prayer and say, “If I have enough faith…” or “If I am persistent enough…” But it doesn’t work quite like that. God is not constrained to our demands, thoughts, and desires. Even Jesus had to accept a different answer than He hoped for. Let’s visit Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Going a little farther, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.’” Matthew 26:39 The answer? Jesus was arrested, put on trial, mocked, tortured, and hung on a cross to die. This was God’s very own Son!
By our definition of answered prayer, Jesus’ prayer was not answered. He did not get what He wanted! So I wonder if maybe we need to change our definition of what answered prayer looks like. Jesus wrote the ‘Procedure Manual on Prayer’.
“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation… So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’” Luke 11:1-4, 9-11
How does this possibly line up? “Ask and you will receive.” All I have to do is ask and God will give me whatever I want. Right?
Back to the Garden… What was Jesus really doing in the Garden? Why didn’t God ‘answer’ His prayer? When I picture Jesus in the Garden, I picture a very stressed – even in anguish – young man. I believe Jesus, God in the flesh, was struggling to align His heart and actions of His flesh with God’s will. He obviously knew that He was going to die. He had told His disciples that on several occasions. But when the time came, the flesh struggled to submit. Because Jesus was fully human as well as fully God, He had to deal with very human responses to stress and anguish. Jesus spent the night in prayer not demanding God give Him what His flesh desired, but aligning His will with the Father in order to be willing to submit to the death on the cross that was coming.
When is the last time I struggled with my flesh, wanting one thing while God was taking me somewhere else? Did I spend the night praying my flesh through the difficult choice to obey or not obey? Because Jesus was willing to obey, we are given the wonderful gift of salvation. When I choose to obey – even when it is painfully hard – is it possible I am extending that gift to others?
I have learned through many hard trials to trust God. If He can take the hardest thing ever – Jesus, the One without sin being tortured and killed on the cross in order to pay the price for our sins and in order to bring about His resurrection, demonstrating eternal life and inviting us to join Him in His kingdom – surely He can take the trials in my life and use them for good.
What I have learned from Gethsemane is that I can share my heart’s desires with God, but then I ask God to show me if they are His desires and submit myself to His answer, whatever it is, in order to do the most good for His kingdom. My desire is to align my heart and will with Him – not get Him to align His will with mine. As a child of the King, my desire is for His will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
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