One of the most challenging areas of growth for me in living out my faith is prayer. It is the area that, for me, requires the most commitment and discipline to be faithful. Part of my trouble is stilling my mind and avoiding what my grandmother called wool-gathering. That is the act of allowing your mind to wander all over God’s creation while you are trying to pray for just a small portion of it. I start out reading scripture and then begin interceding for myself and others’ needs. Pretty soon, I am making a grocery list or wondering what is on my schedule for the day. I previously shared that my spiritual mentor, Ann Clark, taught me how to pray through the alphabet and from lists. Though it seemed overly superficial and not very “spiritually romantic,” I began to see my passion for prayer increase and my commitment to prayer strengthen. The process revealed that some of my lack of prayer was a lack of faith. I discovered that prayer wasn’t about what I wanted. It was more about what God can do with a yielded soul. Prayer is the intimate exchange of conversation between God and myself. It is where my mind can be renewed and my heart synchronized with the will of God. If only my priority were to pursue this, God would meet me with the passion He has for me. I have learned that my passion for Him comes out of the love He has for me. God is the source of everything I need.
Jesus demonstrates this throughout His ministry. Often He went away to pray alone and commune with the Father. Because Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of Man, I believe these prayer times were where His spirit communed with the trinity, and His humanity was refreshed and strengthened for the mission of the cross. We see this so clearly in the account in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal and arrest. I am not a person who believes Jesus was torn about His choice to die but instead asked for his humanity to be parallel with His spirit and the Father’s will. Praying, “If it be your will, Father, Let this cup pass from me,” is not a plea for deliverance or Jesus looking for a last-minute out of Calvary but a pursuit where His flesh would be synchronized with the will of the Father. Remember, Jesus left heaven willingly to come to earth. It was out of the heart of the trinity that Salvation’s plan was born, and Jesus, though He was separated from Glory, never departed from the plan. (John 17:1-4)
However, this agonizing passionate prayer of Jesus also reveals that though the cross was before Him, He spent time praying personally for those He would leave behind. In John 17, John records the pouring out of passion Jesus has for His disciples. He asks for protection and safety. Jesus petitions God to teach them, make them holy, and fill them with the truth. Then, something extraordinary is recorded in John 17:20. Jesus prays for me. He prays for all who will come to believe in Him and follow Him. Christ asks for unity and for our testimony to be strengthened and that the Father’s Glory will be revealed in our lives! He asks that we will deeply know the Father’s love and expresses His desire for us, you and me, to be WITH Him! Before I was born, Jesus was already thinking of how much He loved me and how He couldn’t wait for me to be in Heaven with Him. Because He knew the Glory of heaven, He was passionate about sharing it with those He loved! This brings these words to my mind..”How deep the Father’s love for us, how blest beyond all measure!”
As we come to this sacred season, this week of remembering the passion of Christ, it is crucial that I am reminded of the role prayer held in the life of Christ. His ongoing conversation and communion with the Father is what fueled His ministry and fed His flesh. He was supplied by the eternal, even in facing death, cast off the temporal. The prayer of Jesus though it contained the passion He had for salvation plan, is not corporate on behalf of mankind, but personal. That is the passion that can change lives if I would but let it sink in.
Lord, my heart is broken as I reflect on the agony you experienced in the garden on my behalf. Thank you that you never wavered in your commitment to rescue me. Jesus, I am overwhelmed when I see that even in facing death, your love for me was so great that you took the time to intercede for me. Even then, you cared about my life and the potential it could have for your Kingdom. Lord, strengthen my desire to commune with you. Let me meet you in my personal Gethsemane, and submit myself to your plan. Help me to know that part of my purpose in prayer is to ask on behalf of others, even those who might betray me. Renew my passion, Lord!
5oclockworker.com 