Mark 14: 36-40
And He was saying,
“Abba Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not
what I will, but what You will.” And He came and found them sleeping and said
to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Keep
watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is
willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again He went away and prayed, saying the same
words. And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very
heavy; and they did not know what to answer Him.
I have kept sheepishly coming back to this passage of
scripture for the past couple days because it is just the reality of this
season for me.
I’ve committed to the constant ‘keeping watch’ of prayer and
intercession and find that I so often fall asleep on the job – unable to stop
the heaviness from pressing into my eyes. Oh how the Spirit is proclaimedly
willing, yet the flesh is very very weak.
Putting myself in this scene, I wonder some things….
Christ was giving an incredible example of surrender,
obedience, desperate pleas to the Father and these hours of surrender right
before the biggest moment in all of history. He was showing His disciples how
to walk in the Father’s will…. And they missed it.
I marvel at how Christ returns to them and finds them
sleeping and immediately calls Peter out – ‘Simon, are you sleeping? Couldn’t
you keep watch for one hour?’ I wonder if He was smiling to himself thinking, ‘this is the guy who I’m going to build my
church upon….dead asleep and unable to stay awake for an hour, well this is
gonna have to change.’
He commands them to keep watching and praying so they don’t
fall into temptation, reminding them how weak they are, then comes back two
more times to find the same scenario… snoring disciples and disappointment…
they just aren’t getting it…. Well then, the time has come, here goes….
In reading this, I first feel myself in Christ’s shoes. The
disciples are my students. The end of the year is coming, I’ve poured out
everything into them, we have 5 weeks of school left, they need to prepare for
high school and they just aren’t getting it! They are in a fog about what they
have coming to them, and I’m over here, pleading for their very souls, for
their lives, for their families, and they are just in technology land, video
gamed in on life and missing it… and I think to myself, can’t you just tune in for ONE hour? And this is the next generation
Father? How is this ‘making disciples of all nations?’
Quickly though, more than anything, I feel the deep regret
of being Peter in this situation. I’m the one with the heavy eyes and weak
knees. The goal is prayer for one hour a day. I do it, but my eyes grow heavy
so often. Why can’t I keep watch for ONE hour? And I don’t have a response for
my Savior.
Praise God that the story doesn’t end there… neither with
Judas’ betrayal, or Peter giving into that temptation that he should have been
praying for when rebuked in this moment, nor in the insults and torture,
neither in the death or the darkness, the earthquake, or the tears at the tomb…
but the story ends with a mandate.
He appears the next time to the 11 while they are reclining
at a table and rebukes them for their unbelief. And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel
to all creation… and they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord
worked with them, and confirmed the word by the signs that followed. (Mark
16:14-15 and 20)
Through all the heavy eyed nights of prayer, I have to cling
to this ending. To the parts where Peter preaches with authority and changes
the temple to a church. To the later remembrance of Christ’s example that the
disciples follow, even unto their own deaths. To the gospel that is still going
forth unto all creation through the weakest and most humble of servants.
I may be falling asleep on the job out of my fleshly
weakness, but the heavenly Father is watching over His word to complete it and
His will IS being done despite the exhaustion and darkness of the night.
I proclaim over and over again, “Abba Father, all things are
possible for You. Yet not my will be done, but Yours.”
Please pray this with me as I come to the end of this year.
The anxiety rises up in me when I think of truly just ‘missing’ all that God
has done in sliding into the end without really grasping the truth. It does not
depend on me, but it sure makes me desperate before God’s throne. More than
anything, I want to be Christ in this story, but my flesh is weak.
Will you pray for me? Intercede for me even? Will you lift
up my 65 students who have heard truth day in and day out this whole year
through? That they would not only accept it, but that they would GET IT, and
that as I seek the Lord in this disciple making, that the gospel would be
displayed to all the ends of the earth?
I can’t stop believing big things, nor praying faith
prayers. I can’t stop pushing them, whether they get it or not. God is providing opportunities at every turn and keeping me tuned in to take them.
One note of encouragement came yesterday from a mom of two
past students. She was asking her kids (who are now in high school) how the
school had formed their spiritual lives in elementary. They both agreed that it
was mostly memorization and not a lot of real life application that helped them
to have personal lives of faith, but then they said, “Except, that might change
now since Ms. Nyhoff is teaching Bible to the 6th graders.”
Oh how I hope in the Lord this is true. Pray that I do not
give up living an example to my students every day as Paul said, “everything
you have learned and seen and believed and heard in me, practice these things.”
(Phil. 4:9)
“How do we cultivate this holy expectancy? While living out
the demands of our day, we are filled with inward worship and adoration. We
work and play and eat and sleep, yet we are listening, ever listening, to our Teacher. Of all of today’s miracles the
greatest is this: to know that I find God best when I work listening…. I thank
God that the habit of constant conversation grows easier each day. I findd it
increasingly easier to distinguish His voice from the blare of everyday life.”
(Richard Foster and Frank Laubach)
