Remove This Cup: Week 7

Unexpected Prayers STUDY

What is it that you pray for? Just yesterday, I prayed for strength and endurance. I prayed in the middle of exhausted heartbreak. How can I make it through, Oh Lord? Will I find a way?

Our imagined, vague, hopeful answers make these prayers easier. Maybe it will all be over tomorrow. Maybe it won’t get any worse. But what if our prayer knew the torturous answer as it prayed? What if we saw the loneliness and terror to come, all in answer to our prayer? Would we keep praying? Or would we find another way to make it through?

I wonder what it felt like as the Son of God prayed. Dripping with sweat. Anxious in anticipation. Sensing that his death was only a kiss away. Hearing the footsteps in the olive trees, as his disciples snored on.

He knew that it was going to get a lot worse. As he knelt down in agony.

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.”

Jesus didn’t want this. He prayed for the judgment of God to pass over him. As we all do, when we feel the righteous sting. Frantic with a vision of God’s wrath on the horizon, our minds would race on. Please, don’t judge me, it’s going to hurt. Please, don’t punish me. It’s not my fault.