The Willingness is All

"And he came and found (James, Peter and John) sleeping, and he said to Peter, 'Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour. Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.'” (Mark 14:37–39).

It's not easy for me to open up to others, and experience has taught me it's not always wise to do so. I have been "betrayed in the house of a friend."

But even true friends can disappoint and disconcert us. On occasion, I've shared a painful ordeal with a man and asked him to prayer for me and he never followed up or mentioned the incident again. I wondered if he cared.

Jesus' example in the Garden of Gethsemane is instructive: "Greatly distressed and troubled" by the horror of impending death on a Roman cross, he turned to his friends, Peter, James and John, and asked them to pray with him, but they, over-adrenalized and exhausted by the events of the previous day, fell asleep.

His response suggests he was deeply hurt by their apparent indifference and was disappointed (remember that Jesus was "made like us in all ways apart from sin."): "Peter, my old friend, couldn't you stay awake for one hour and pray with me"?

Two more times he awakened his friends and asked them to pray; two more times they slumbered and he prayed alone.

But there is this unexpected grace note: “I know you wanted to pray with me." ("The spirit indeed is willing...)

Would that we all were so gracious...

David Roper

2.9.18