Earnest Prayer

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 being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

~Luke 22: 41-44

If there are any words that I think are most powerful, most surrendering to pray it has to be those of Jesus just before his crucifixion: “not my will, but Yours be done.” Knowing what was ahead of him, his body ached until he sweat drops of blood. Yet, even in great desperation and anxiety, he wanted more than his own desire for the Father’s will do be done. The more he hurt, the more uncertain he felt, the more earnest he prayed. Oh to be a child of God who responded to difficulty and challenge the way Jesus did!

All too often though, if I’m honest, when I hit a rough spot or things don’t go as planned, or I get that call or that news, my prayer stops and disconnection from my Father ensues. Instead of withdrawing to the Lord, I run from him, afraid of what his will may be, what it may require of me.

As I recognize this pattern in my spiritual walk, my deepest hope is that God would not only give me the grace to repent of being too fearful to pray sincerely for his will, but also that he would help me to engage in whatever it is he places before me, desiring more than anything else to see his will revealed and fulfilled.

As I pursue these things in my spiritual journey, thankfully, the Lord is showing me some things about the attitude with which to approach challenges, what to pray for in hard seasons, and some things about the nature of his grace.

What I’m learning about the mind set with which to approach difficulty is this: instead of running from challenge, run into Jesus’ open arms. He’s not asking me to go alone, just to go and trust that he’ll be there. Don’t try to stand tall on my own, but lean into him and let him carry me through. Shauna Niequist expresses the same concept like this:  “if you try to stand and face the wave, it will smash you to bits, but if you trust the water and let it carry you, there’s nothing sweeter.”

What the Lord is showing me in regard to prayer in hard seasons is this: to pray. I know it sounds simplistic, but all too often, in difficult times, I do not pray as much as I try to figure out the “why” of the difficulty. What I’m seeing is that my prayer doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be. God gives us the gift of prayer, not because it changes him but because it changes us. It lifts our eyes, widens our perspective, and comforts our souls. I think that one of the sweetest, most authentic sacrifices we can offer before God in prayer is a sincere heart. As the prophet Joel says, “rend your heart.” I believe this means to come before the Lord in the true state of your heart. I think when we do that we are able to see as Shauna Niequist states, “more awareness of God’s presence and action and ability, and less stranglehold on fear and anxiety.”

As I rend my heart before the Lord, this is what I am finding about his grace: it has the power to reveal his desires to my heart and to make them my own. A familiar verse from the Psalms says, “delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I am discovering that true joy in the Lord transforms my desires to be the same as the Lord’s and that is when I receive the desires of my heart-when they are one with the Lord’s. I think that’s one of the ways his grace is most clearly demonstrated. In making us a new creation, he gives us his very own desires. He does not just ask us to pray for his will, he empowers us to will what he wills. As Shauna Niequist says, “Grace is when the silence is so complete that you can hear your own heartbeat, and right within your ribs, God’s beating heart, too.”

I am so thankful for a Savior who can identify with our human weakness and yet also with God’s strength. I’m grateful that he showed us what earnest prayer looks like in the most difficult situations. Most of all, I’m thankful that Jesus leaned into the challenge before him, tearing the veil that separated us from the Father so that we might be reconciled to him, given the grace to desire his will.