FATHER NOT WHAT i WILL
“Abba, Father,” He cried out, “everything is possible for You. Please take this cup of suffering away from Me. Yet I want Your will to be done, not Mine.” (Mark 14:36, NLT)
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. (1 John 5:14, NIV)
As we near the end of our journey with Jesus in prayer, we come to perhaps the most powerful lesson we could ever learn: Our prayers are always heard by God, and answered by God, through the lens of the Father's will. Jesus models for us how to pray desperately for that which we desire, yet he still submits to the ultimate will of the Father, even though Jesus is Himself God and one with the Father. In this moment, He is teaching us a very human lesson. Sometimes we will not get what we ask for simply because the Father's will must override our desire.
It is important to understand the difference between Jesus’ prayer at Gethsemane and Jesus’ High Priestly prayer in John chapter 17. In His prayer for the church in John 17, Jesus prays that the Father would get the glory. His prayer is all about the Father being glorified in the suffering of the Son. His prayer is about asking the Father to use His suffering for His greater glory and for the benefit of the church. Simply put, in John 17, Jesus prays a prayer in which God gets all the glory. And thus, Jesus prays with boldness and confidence and does not apply the clause, “I want Your will to be done, not Mine.”
However, in Jesus’ prayer at Gethsemane, He is praying a simple and true and honest prayer of supplication to the Father. He is burdened by His suffering. He knows the great pain that He will bear when He takes the Sin of the entire world upon His shoulders. He knows the torment of soul He is about to face. And He prays an honest prayer with a humble heart. He asks the Father if it is possible to take this cup of suffering away from Him. If there is any other way, Jesus is asking the Father to find it.
We can only imagine a small portion of the suffering Jesus was about to endure at the Cross. And in Jesus' prayer we can see His humanity. We see the reality of His suffering for our Sin. We learn that Jesus understands the cry of the human heart before God. He knows what we feel like when we ask the Lord to rescue us from our suffering.
Yet Jesus also knows that He is not praying something that will glorify the Father. He knows it is a prayer of supplication. He is making a simple and heartfelt request before the Lord. So he adds the clause, “I want Your will to be done, not Mine.”
There is some wisdom we can gain by distinguishing between the two types of prayers Jesus prays. In the one, He prays with confidence. In the other, He simply asks, and then adds the qualifying statement.
Perhaps we can learn to distinguish our wants and desires from the times we can pray with authority and confidence. Perhaps there is a time to present our requests to God with a hesitancy where we say, Lord I ultimately want Your will and submit to Your will on this. And, there are other times when we need to pray in Jesus’ name with boldness and confidence. In these times we know that what we are asking for is going to give the Father glory, and we can ask with confidence in Jesus’ name. May we learn the difference and grow in prayer as we apply this wisdom.
What is God saying to me today?
My Prayer List:
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Personal Prayer:
Father, I thank you for this lesson in prayer. Give me wisdom to know the difference between the prayers I can pray with authority, knowing that it is fully in Your will already. Show me where I can pray prayers of declaration that will activate the promises of Jesus’ teaching on prayer. Also, show me when I need to pray prayers of supplication, where I humbly make my request and submit myself to Your will. Teach me to grow in both of these aspects of prayer. In Jesus’ name, Amen.