"Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this purpose I came to this hour."
(John 12:27)
This is a little treading on the proverbial "thin ice," but there is something deeply moving to me about our Lord's struggle here. I have personally experienced, "Father, what should I say?" There are overwhelming times in everyone's life to some degree or another, not just for ourselves, but others we know or hear about. You go to pray for yourself and them, to seek relief, answers, direction, and the words just do not come.
Don't be proud if this has never happened to you; life is not over. But to those who are humble enough to admit such a depth of inundation, there is comfort in the example of our Lord Jesus. "Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say?" He then submits a possible prayer, "Should I say something like, 'Father, save Me from this hour?' But then, "For this purpose I came to this hour." So, He did not say, "....save Me...." Oh, how we do want to pray that prayer. Later in the Garden, however, He would say those most powerful of submission words, "Nevertheless not my will, but but thine, be done." Many of the so-called "faith people" have railed on such praying as capitulation to unbelief. On the contrary for me; it has saved my life.
It is apparently okay to be in such a place as our Lord Jesus Christ "found" Himself in our text, because in a very real sense it is identity with and in Him. In His case, "the hour of temptation," was upon Him. As Barkley once said, "No one wants to die at 33." But in Father, in Holy Spirit, Jesus saw the "greater purpose." He saw you and me facing a life of separation from the Godhead, unforgiveness, the fires of Hell; hence, His response, "But for this purpose I came to this hour." Oh, I pray for you and me, "Let this mind be in [us], which was also in Christ Jesus...," and it is, because Christ Jesus is in us who believe and follow, yes; but may His, "mind," be "released" in us, in our approach to all that life brings.
"But for this purpose...." There are purposes for each of us and the Church in general. Sometimes when we see their possibilities looming on the horizon, we too say, "What should I say," or, "What can I say," or, "I really don't have anything to say." In that moment, when it seems most overwhelming, most fearful, most dreadful, Jesus brings us to the same place He was in our text, and in that "place," in Jesus Christ Himself, is the prayer to pray, the faith to believe that He has not left us, nor forsaken us, but keeps us in His bosom. "Oh, Jesus, Blessed Redeemer, sent from the Heart of God, hold us who wait before Thee, near to the heart of God." I go one better on the hymn writer. Those who love, surrender to, and obey Jesus are not just "near to the Heart of God;" they are in the very "Heart of God"!
Father, in Jesus' Name, I admit that I, "don't know how to pray as I should," but thank You so much that Holy Spirit does. Amen.
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Read An Accurate Take on Recent Egyptian Elections:
www.jerberwash.blogspot.com
Today's Unreached People Group: www.apfunreachedpeoples.blogspot.com
When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
